The Derby

[MikeyPosh]

Can anyone recall this badboy? 2p a go £1,50 JP if memory serves me, or 10p a gom £3 JP (if you bet on the White Horse

Boy I had some fun on this, id be put my coins on White, but in more than one place, of course id lose

Can stuff like this be emulated?

 

Edited December 3, 2025 by MikeyPosh

[thealteredemu]

Mame candidate, but it all depends on resources available and info on any tech, unless it was all electromechanical.

J

[thealteredemu]

…more importantly someone passionate about emulating this kind of thing.  Extremely niche.

 

J

[slotsmagic]

1 hour ago, MikeyPosh said:

Can anyone recall this badboy? 2p a go £1,50 JP if memory serves me, or 10p a gom £3 JP (if you bet on the White Horse

Boy I had some fun on this, id be put my coins on White, but in more than one place, of course id lose

Can stuff like this be emulated?

 

Yeah, I used to love these, but often found them on much lower payouts - so 2p play and a jackpot of something like 40-80p

I think they were made by Whittakers, not sure about that exact model. Same with roulette, bloody loved those 2p/10p bet roulette machines  

[lammas10]

I have one of these a Whitakers Ascot Gold Cup on 10p play the double sided 6 player version. Its great fun.

The one in the picture is the 3 player that goes up against a wall.

Mr P has a few of these, pretty sure there is one at Bognor.

[Amusements]

I used to have the older version of this called Derby Stakes (6 players). I once had environmental health come round with a sound meter to  measure the volume of it across the road from my arcade, because someone in a high rise complained about the noise. That went nowhere!

Apparently the manufacturers in Oldham closed in 2024.

Coin-op amusements news | Whittaker Brothers closes its doors | InterGame

[slotsmagic]

12 hours ago, Amusements said:

I used to have the older version of this called Derby Stakes (6 players). I once had environmental health come round with a sound meter to  measure the volume of it across the road from my arcade, because someone in a high rise complained about the noise. That went nowhere!

Apparently the manufacturers in Oldham closed in 2024.

Coin-op amusements news | Whittaker Brothers closes its doors | InterGame

It's a tricky one, leaving me conflicted. I was upset when I read that news. But then I got to thinking about the other thread about seaside arcades, and slot machines that look just like adult versions being offered to children like a gateway drug.

Some of my favourite old arcade machines were these horse racing and the Roulette I mentioned above (see attached flyer - but also we had a smaller, 2 or 4 player version in our arcade, pretty sure it was called New Orleans but can't see any Google results for that).

Thankfully I never really had a problem with horses and roulette or other table games. But that is probably only as I didn't have the attention span and I needed a quick fix without trying to work out maths or form  

Still, I had many happy memories of playing them, and the fact they were 2p and a slow game... I'd be sorry to see them go.

I'm guessing arcades simply don't want big old good value for money machines when the same space could be used for a 4/8 player cube grabber or a video slot that pays tickets

Edited December 4, 2025 by slotsmagic

[vectra666]

Great machine this roulette and horse racing one 

bets on blue win!! And their off!!!

loves roulette running around the machine shoving 2p on white for 32p and having it land on white the noise of the six machines paying out 16 2ps (if they weren’t empty!) then running around again white three times on the trot a good £6 in 2ps lol 

the horse racing was 50p on 2p/ £1.50 on 10p 

[fruitsnappa]

Played a good one of these in Vegas. Think it was a Konami game.

IMG_2023.zip

[Jamie28J]

Absolutely loved The Derby.  I think they still have one in the Merrivale arcade in Yarmouth (next to the Model Village).

[slotsmagic]

1 hour ago, fruitsnappa said:

Played a good one of these in Vegas. Think it was a Konami game.

IMG_2023.zip 19.18 MB · 2 downloads

I don't want to be seem like I'm stereotyping but the Japanese do seem to like their horse racing. They have proper horse racing arcade games (much like the car and motorcycle ride-on arcade games... but with horses.)

That looks like a nice bit of equipment, but clearly in the casino environment it's destined as a proper gambling machine and not the old 2p versions we had, which (while still not cheap back in the day I guess), weren't full-on gambling

 

3 hours ago, vectra666 said:

Great machine this roulette and horse racing one 

bets on blue win!! And their off!!!

loves roulette running around the machine shoving 2p on white for 32p and having it land on white the noise of the six machines paying out 16 2ps (if they weren’t empty!) then running around again white three times on the trot a good £6 in 2ps lol 

the horse racing was 50p on 2p/ £1.50 on 10p 

Yes, I used to do that too, as a young lad, as well as a bit of spread betting  

Despite running a Whittakers roulette in the arcade I never really had much to do with it. I don't think it ever broke down so I never had a need to go digging into it.

I'd be inclined to say it actually uses a random maths model based on the amount / size of winning segments rather than any sort of computerised  compensators. But it's been so long since I played one! 

I'll probably end up owning one at some point just for nostalgia  

Edited December 4, 2025 by slotsmagic

[vectra666]

1 hour ago, slotsmagic said:

I don't want to be seem like I'm stereotyping but the Japanese do seem to like their horse racing. They have proper horse racing arcade games (much like the car and motorcycle ride-on arcade games... but with horses.)

That looks like a nice bit of equipment, but clearly in the casino environment it's destined as a proper gambling machine and not the old 2p versions we had, which (while still not cheap back in the day I guess), weren't full-on gambling

 

Yes, I used to do that too, as a young lad, as well as a bit of spread betting  

Despite running a Whittakers roulette in the arcade I never really had much to do with it. I don't think it ever broke down so I never had a need to go digging into it.

I'd be inclined to say it actually uses a random maths model based on the amount / size of winning segments rather than any sort of computerised  compensators. But it's been so long since I played one! 

I'll probably end up owning one at some point just for nostalgia  

Had to be random where the ball landed like standard roulette as the metal ball bounced around not magnetic so the odds of landing on white were probably the same as landing on “0” on real roulette