Hey Guys! Got four more machines... should I bother? Please help!

[p.opus]

neat stats.. it would be interesting to see how they average over several thousand balls more

Over the long run, they even out with the Hanemono being the clear head and shoulders winner. You can almost guarantee a Fever once every 1000 balls shot. I have adjusted the payout hopper on this machine to 15 so that my Gaku Counter would be accurate. There is no Gaku Support for a 11 ball payout, so I adjusted the machine. The additional 4 balls per payout really makes the machine loose.

The Vintage seems to average about a 110% payout. Sometimes it's lower, sometimes it's higher, but an ending balance of 1100 balls for 1000 shot is not unheard of.

The Star Wars machine will bleed you dry. There are modes in the machine that can increase the odds of successive fevers and modes that will temporarily change the playfield odds to nearly 100% But eventually after the machine runs its course, although you have a nice stack of balls, it will basically run you dry in between fevers.

So in order of longterm payout I have found the following:

1. Early Modern: Consistent profitable fever rounds. I'm sure pin benders got a real workout with these machines. Vintages by their nature are self regulating. The addition of the fever mode with no way to adjust the odds except by bending pins made life a nightmare. This is also why many Hanemonos were set as All 13's or All 11's. You could only adjust win percentage so much so you had to lower the amount for each win to keep the player from robbing the parlor owner blind.

2. Vintage: Slow but steady. You can really build up a profit, but it will take you a LONG time.

3. Modern: Big Fevers, excitement, but over the long term, it will eventually bleed you dry.

[Super Dave Osbourne]

Would be ideal to always assess a 'study' of use by a large population so statistics don't play a part. Many thousands of balls is at best ideal, many miltiples of millions is "more better idealistic."

[p.opus]

The Hanemono stats were severely skewed up. To make it accurate with my Gaku Counter I had originally adjusted the payout tray to dispense 15 balls per hit instead of the designed 11. This really makes the machine "too loose". I adjusted it back to 11 and it's not as "all powerful" as it once was. You can still get a fever every 1000 balls, but each hit yields 27% fewer balls. The machine is no longer a guaranteed "money maker". You can actually get a fever during your 1000 ball stake and while you most likely will end up with more balls than you started, you can still easily "lose money" due to the lower value you received during turn in (2.5 yen turn in vs. 4.0 yen rental).

This makes the machine much tighter. The playfield was originally designed as an all 11, so the payout pockets and the relative ease of getting and maintaining the fever round takes into account an 11 ball payout. Once adjusted back to it's original settings, it fell back into a payout that was still better than the Vintage, but not by much. I feel that in the long run, the vintage could catch up because the vintages 15 ball per ball payout allows it to approach those of the Hanemono on 27% less hits.


To accurately measure the 11 ball payout, I set my counter to 10 balls per payout, this gives me a base. I then divide the total paid out by 10 and add it to the net, this gives accurate values for an 11 ball payout. e.g. 35 hits yeild a payout of 350 balls, divide that by 10 is 35. Add this to the initial 350 and you get 385 for your win count, which is equivalent to 35*11 balls a hit. In comparison those same hits would have yielded 525 balls at 15 balls a hit. Quite a significant difference.

It's a little more math, but the machine plays much more realistically and the net wins aren't so incredibly skewed upwards. It also makes refilling during the fever less hectic.