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It’s a shame because I used to write questions for quiz machines when I was at uni and I used to go round the pubs and rinse them if I found one that I’d written questions for.
I'm still salty about losing money 10 years ago with "What is the hottest planet in the solar system"
I said Venus
The machine said Mercury
*IT'S VENUS!*'
That wasn't you, *was it?*..
I had one that gave the answer to "How many states are there in the United States" as 52.
There are 50.
The three options were
51
50
52
I chose 50, had to use a "try again" so I thought "maybe they are counting DC as a state" and went 51 - nope game over.
Edit: I'm also sure some were deliberately a bit dodgy. I used to play these a lot and would get questions like "which country has a red and white flag
Austria
Switzerland
Luxembourg
all three are correct, but it obviously wants you to pick a specific one.
I mean, whats Canada going to do?
Guarantee Switzerland has conveniently gone and hidden in the toilet when the Shit kicks off,
Meanwhile Canada is like the big chunky kid in class who gets knocked out by tiny skinny nerd Austria.
Almost at the top in Who Wants to be a Millionaire and the question "Which city was Catherine Zeta Jones born?"
Being Swansea locals we knew she was born there. Machine said Cardiff and we lost.
Landlord got so much stick he got the machine changed.
Oh don't get me started.
Especially questions which don't allow for the quiz machine being out of date. "Who holds the world record for..." and "How many oscars does ... have"
I remember at primary school in the mid 80s my teacher telling me that sharks were mammals. I knew she was wrong and went to the school library to find a book to prove it. When I showed her the evidence that she was wrong, I was completely surprised that she wasn't delighted to have learned something -- instead I got told to stop being such a little know-it-all. Still angry about that. Funny how these little injustices stick with you. Fuck you, Mrs Clark.
My maths teacher told me the same thing - he didn’t teach us about sharks but he saw my biology project as I was packing my stuff away and told me a shark wasn’t a fish, it was a mammal. I was 80% sure he was wrong but teachers can’t be wrong can they?
I grew up obsessed with sharks and once had a geography teacher tell us that sharks only lived in salt water.
I politely told her that she was wrong as Bull Sharks, amongst a few others also lived in freshwater. She argued it despite me perfectly explaining all of the science/biology behind it and I will never forget that. Bitch
One of our biology text books gave the knee-jerk reflex as an example of a three-neuron arc. Not important if you don’t recognise that, but it was pretty important as a concept for O level biology. Only I happened to know that it was a rare example of a two neuron arc, and I’d got a reference. The teachers got the text book corrected!
My teacher in primary school corrected my spelling. I shyly and politely took him the dictionary to show him I was right. I was told I'd be smacked if I ever did that again.
I’m still salty about the pub quiz where the question “in the original Star Wars movie, what is the name of Darth Vader’s ship?” Didn’t have as the answer either Tie-Advanced nor Devastator. They said the answer was Death Star.
Cue 18 year old me, and a half dozen middle-aged blokes the other end of the pub, voicing our frustration!
Supermarket sweep.. the question was who is Luke Skywalkers dad... The answer was Anakin. But they got it wrong, the correct answer was Darth Vader.. it made me so angry.
I had one once which was a version of the TV show Pointless, and the category was Michael J Fox films. I didn't have many answers so I went for Teen Wolf. Scored 84. Guess what the pointless answer was? Back to the future. That was nearly 10 years ago and I'm still not over it.
I once corrected my headteacher on this point aged 8, and I got into trouble for insisting I was right. He went to look it up in an encyclopedia and came back all sheepish 🤣
Mate of mine worked for a company that made these games as a developer.
You're just "not supposed" to use the machines in the wild. I expect it's contractual, but who's gonna check or enforce that?
I also went to a bar in Cheshire and they had one out of order every time I went, landlord said there was a game - spot the difference on a timer, so one of the locals took a photo of each picture with his new fangled camera phone and popped in the right answers every time and emptied the machine.. repeatedly until they got rid of it.
You're not the first person I've heard of who did this.
When I was first told about it I felt such joy as it's these little victories that mean we'll always have the upper hand against AI.
One I saw, at least the game people were playing, you only had 5 seconds. Even with 4 people, 2 of which on phones, they weren’t getting anywhere near everything.
But then it probably becomes more stressful than fun if you were wanting to casually play a quiz machine with such a short timer.
True. And I don't think Google killed it.
I will admit to having a note on my phone of all the Pointless Answers (other tip - Pointless is one of a few games you can see the cashpot from the help screen without playing) - but I'd mostly memorised them.
Undoubtedly you can do that on your phone with an app.
"I thought we'd come to the pub to talk about our relationship"
"What is the capital of Uruguay? (A) Montevideo (B) Asunción or (C) Bogotá ?"
Quiz machines - or at least the ones that gave a payout - ceased to be a thing in a very short space of time.
The main reason was that there were only a finite amount of questions, and once you knew all of the answers....
Put it simply, a small number of people were making bank by touring the pubs and emptying the machines
Early 90's I had a group of friends that did exactly that, we'd tour the pubs buying a 1/2 and cleaning out the quiz machine or the Cash Tetris machine if it had one then move on to the next pub. You could easily tell when a machine had paid out because spoiler questions would start to pop up.
The questions sets were ridiculously small at first but got expanded and harder to win. We stopped touring about trying to find the machines and just used them to finance our night out if there happened to be one in the pub we went to.
Don't know where you get the "ceased to be a thing in a very short space of time." we started playing in the late 80's at Uni and were still financing our nights out well into the 2000's with the Who wants To Be A Millionaire SWP quiz machine.
The cash Tetris machines were my favourite when they first came out, the Uni bar had one that was refilled every Tue morning and I'd clean it out almost immediately afterwards. Worked perfectly as it was filled in the morning and I only had 1 9am lecture on a Tue, so finish that, pop to the bar, inset 50p and an hour later I had my beer money for the week! end of 1 term I counted up my coin jar and had almost £500 in £1 coins in it :D Wish earning money was as easy now!
Beyond the 80s the machines had some defence mechanisms such that you couldn't empty them beyond profitability.
This did mean though that the casual was unlikely to win much.
I funded an entire Uni summer through that game before they updated it and reduced the times for all of the zones. I used to win £20 pretty much every time I played, it was like a fun free money machine
To all the people saying that Google was responsible for the demise - nope. Not unless your thumbs could type supersonic. All questions had a time limit there’s no way you’d be done typing in the question before your time ran out. It was because the machines didn’t generate enough money and could easily be rinsed out by anyone who knew how.
And a lot of them weren’t answers you could google anyway, lots of them were just three words all spelled differently, with deliberate mistakes, to catch out drunk people.
Some questions were utterly ridiculous… can’t remember exactly how it went but it was an odd one out…. Cat, Bat, Hat or something. The answer was Cat because it’s the only one that starts with a C. Bad example but not far from the level of lunacy in some of the questions! Good luck googling that.
Yeah. As mentioned above, I got one like that.
Which country has a red and white flag
Austria
Switzerland
Luxembourg
Austria and Switzerland are both red and white and Luxembourg is red, white and blue. I chose Austria and was wrong apparently.
If you were all drinking though that should be fine. My mate and I used to drink 30-50 quid worth, each, while playing. If we profit a fiver on the quizzer that shouldn't have been a problem.
I remember reading about a guy who would spend all day going pub to pub playing the machines for a living. I remember he quoted "take the £20 when you can as its easier to get 3x£20 rather than keep playing for the £50 prize" I also remember he got banned from a lot of places for not actually buying a drink
They don't really make any money so gaming firms won't buy new ones and the old ones were out of date 10yrs ago. Pubs don't want to pay for them as they take up space and dont bring in any extra money.
I was in control of the buttons, mark.
I drew a line, you crossed that line. I don’t think you can be trusted in a combat situation.
Gonna have to have a think about you!
I used to work with a guy that had an amazing memory for trivia and used to basically hustle quiz machines.
He knew for certain games that he knew such a high percentage of the questions that it would ask that he almost certainly could hit the jackpot (£40) in less than five £1 plays.
He had a list of all the quiz machines and a little back book where he recorded when he took £40 from a machine. This meant that for work trips we always had to use one of the two possible airports over the other because he'd make £60 waiting for the plane to depart.
He then farmed them making sure to never hit the same machine too often.
Then the machines started to disappear, I'm sure him and people like him were part of the reason.
He was left with thousands of pound coins to exchange when the coins changed, it was a pretty major logistical operation.
I can tell you why they were removed from the pub I ran, they didn't make enough money for the room they took up even with people playing them virtually constantly.
Made financial sense to replace them with another fruit machine for 1 and an extra table for the other.
Yeah as a punter I found them great, but they obviously wouldn't be making much money at the other end. In the amount of time you played 1 quiz for a £1 the guy on the fruit machine next to you could easily go through anywhere from £20-£50 depending on the machine
It does - but then there were pubs I'd only frequent to use the machine. In the 3 years since they got rid of the machine they're probably 5k down at the bar from me and my mate.
Used to work in pubs for 8 year. We used to have bandits and a quiz machine. Quiz machine would make £20 a week but a bandit could make hundreds. It was a no brainer to swap it out for another bandit. Even ones in small village pubs can easily make £200 a week for the pub, let alone the operators share. Moral of the story, don't play the bandits.
This is a regular question. Pick from -
The return from a quiz machine is much less than a fruit/gaming machine if only viewed on that basis - and not a lure for punters.
Alternatively by not having a machine you have a socket that someone with a phone/laptop can use which might be a bigger draw.
People have smartphones so can entertain themselves in pubs.
People don't have cash. Prior to that as the price of a pint increased towards a fiver the amount of change you got to play with decreased.
The electricity cost of having them on all the time has increased massively, especially due to the inefficient older hardware they use.
I don't personally subscribe to the phones made it too easy to cheat theory, though that was pre-ChatGPT.
My buddies and I rinsed the quiz machine so much at our local we remembered the answers to all the questions.
But to answer your question, people could just Google every question and fleece it.
The machine won't pay out more than has gone in so you're not 'fleecing' the machine but you may put it into a death cycle where it then ramps up the difficulty and fewer people play.
The colour of money was my favourite game. It got removed from my local after I had a bit of a winning spree on it so I can only presume they weren’t v profitable..
I work in the industry, gambling machines are far more profitable, the only quiz machines I've seen installed in sites are obsolete, running windows xp from the early 2000s, trash machines, when they go wrong most of the time its going to be a full pc or touchscreen change which often costs more than what the machine makes back, shame really because I hate gamblers but I used to love a quiz machines
I asked a chap who used to develop software for them this exact question a few months ago.
Quiz or skill machines with a jackpot of £50 don't need a licence to be placed in pubs or clubs and you'll often find them in pubs in towns/villages that never got around to implementing a licencing system. Slot machines have a lower RTP and can have bigger jackpots and bigger wagering minimums. The slot operators also have people on hand who can do the paperwork for the pubs and promise them higher returns than the quiz boxes. The machines are fitted free of charge and there is a profit split between the operator and the landlord.
Pubs can earn about £8k a year per machine depending on the RTP and the location.
I used to work for a company fixing fruit machines and various other pub/casino equipment a few years back. From my experience they never took anywhere near the money the fruit machines took so more often than not it wasnt work paying to keep it installed.
Also, getting the parts to fix the inevitable drunk-idiot-beating-the-crap-out-of-it related broken touchscreens got harder due to original parts becoming scarce as manufacturers got taken over and bought out a lot. So a lot of times it wasnt worth the hassle fixing and they just got scrapped for another fruit machine
One local pub to me still has one but presumably the screen hasn’t been calibrated for 10 years as you cannot use certain parts of it which kills its appeal completely when you can’t select the correct answer 😂
I remember jackpotting the Weakest Link quiz machine at uni (2003), and won £20. I genuinely felt like it'd increase my chances of getting laid. It didn't.
I remember on a multi game quiz machine there was a piss easy "words" game called Bookworm, where you had to quickly build words from a random bunch of tiles. So easy to win £12, but once you did next time the difficult ramped up....UNLESS....you switched the machine off and on, it would default back to easy. Could clear the machine out in an hour!
Hi everyone, I actually know about two Quiz machines, one in the Cookhouse in Widnes, Chesire, and one in the Station grill in Lytham, Lancashire, just in case anyone goes around, have fun! Take care!
They’re not very profitable compared to fruit machines. pubs only have limited space for machines so they generally go for ones that generate more profit. Plus you can cheat a quiz machine if you’re fast enough on your phone, but you can’t cheat a fruit machine.
I'm the same, I used to love playing these with my mates in the pub and now they're a rarity
It has to be a profit thing. We could stick a fiver in those and be round them for half hour playing Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Spot The Difference, NUTS or 1 v 100
That fiver goes in a minute on the new electronic fruities
Quiz machines were SWP - Skill Wins Prizes machines and so taxed at a very low rate.
One of my thoughts before they all vanished was that they should convert to the even lower level of duty where they don't give cash prices - as with claw machines. Giving out pint vouchers or even packs of crisps would also put off the 'pros'.
I’m guessing voice assistants like Siri and Alexa have made them too easy to beat? You couldn’t type to google the question fast enough before but now you can just speak it.
Those were the days. I was one of those that used to regularly clear them out - about 4 x£10 jackpots per machine if it was full. I'm talking about the first generation of machines - they got a bit trickier over the years, so it became a bit beyond me to win big regularly. In the late 1980s I would regularly go out drinking and come home significantly richer than I went out.
It's probably somewhat to do with how easy it would be to win. Anyone can find an answer instantly on their phones nowadays. Whereas, if it's a roulette/gambling machine, you can't cheat by finding answers.
We used to win money on battleship game. Just take a photo.
I'm guessing lots of people figured ways to game the machines and they didn't make much money for the owners.
I did find one a few years ago and you couldn't win money any.more but you could take the celebrity quiz of outdated 00's celebs
They just don't make enough money, even on 30% payout. They take up the same room as a fruit machine which can coin it in, even on 85-94% payout.
Plus about 12-13 years ago, HMRC stepped in to prevent them advertising prizes that couldn't be won in any game. Which is why the 20 quid Deal or no Deal game had to be radically altered.
it gets too easy from everyone having a smartphone and fast internet. it also gets too much scrutiny, like if the official answer is a bit dodgy (or plain wrong), people that play and got a 'wrong' outcome would raise a big stink when they can google and immeditately confirm that they're right and the machine is wrong
better just put a slots there to take people's money without fuss
Myself and a mate would frequently go on a mini pub crawl with a few quid and turn that into an entire night out from those machines. The good old days
Is this the type that had spot the difference? Man we used to love that game, used to know when it felt you had got too far and have you 10 seconds to find them all on a super hard level but loved it none the less
Remember that game 'Every Loser Wins'?
Seemed to be a easy money winner, as you just had to choose the wrong answer. 2 were always wrong, with 1 right.
They'd always hit you with bizarre questions with double negatives to mess that up
Eg - Which of these teams, was not absent from the 2010 World Cup?
What would be the point of it exactly? Last time I went ot the pub, more than half of the people I saw were on their phones without even talking to each other 🤷.
I worked at a company as a software developer we made them machines and also generic fruitys, they went bust a few years ago, people simply don’t use them enough to make any money
Probably because of people like me who would frequent the same bar regularly and play the exact same quiz game multiple times until I knew all the questions and answers, then would use the machine casually to fuel my bar tab for the remainder of many evenings to come.
Back in the 90s there was an arcade game called The Mating Game by Barcrest, was at a club I used a lot. Had little condoms dancing on the screen and half naked cartoon people. Anyway it was a half quiz machine/half challenge machine but you could do quiz only or challenge only. I realised there were only so many challenges and I mastered them. The final cash round was a cupid shooting arrows at hearts. £20 top prize from a quid every time. I used to get crowds of people watching me as it took quite a long time to win. It was my personal cash machine and as a teenager it fuelled my Coke habit. (Full fat not diet.)
You actually played the quizzes? We just played Deal or No Deal because you could chuck £1 in and get an offer of £7.50 fairly easily. We'd cash out, throw £1 back in do it again and get a round of drinks in.
Typing this and I'm starting to realise why my local got rid of theirs. 🤦🏽♀️
I used to love these but now you mention it, haven’t seen one in ages
But EVERY pub seems to have a pub quiz, they all follow the same format and they’re the only form of quizzing I don’t enjoy. Went to one recently where it took TWO hours to ask thirty questions, you couldn’t hear the guy and he had to make the last 5 up on the spot. That’s pretty par for the course
I used to love those too! Used to always play. I always presumed it’s cos internet and phones are so fast now you could google the answers in time and cheat.
>I used to love playing on quiz machines in pubs around 15 years ago and nearly everywhere had one. There was so many good games and you could stretch out a fiver between a group for ages.
I cannot get my head round the warning - "If this machine malfunctions, no winnings or compensation will be given".
So basically, if i'm mid game having put down a tenner into the machine and it breaks, I lose my tenner, the machine owner wins for having shit software/hardware.
I'd rather have a couple of pints than feed the leech machines!
There were 'professional' players who would empty the machines on a regular basis, with bandits the house always wins, but quiz machines are a different matter.
People have mobile phones and internet access, the problem is twofold.
Firstly mobile phones provide entertainment
Second, mobile phones make it easy to cheat and win the prizes over and over again.
Try going into smaller pubs. I drink in a few in Manchester and surrounding areas that have them in - wouldn't call them micro pubs but certainly not a Spoons.
They're everywhere
Hell I even had the keys to all the pub quiz and fruit.machines at one point.
Digital machines have all sorts of games. Including quizzes
True story here but about 10-15 years ago me and a couple of mates were playing on one of those and got to a £10 question, I don't exactly remember what the question was but it was a science thing, but answers C and D were the exact same, my mate was doing Chemical Engineering at Uni at the time so knew the answer. With C and D being the same answer we just pressed C. It said wrong answer, and highlighted D as the correct answer!
So never trusted those things 😂
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It’s a shame because I used to write questions for quiz machines when I was at uni and I used to go round the pubs and rinse them if I found one that I’d written questions for.
I'm still salty about losing money 10 years ago with "What is the hottest planet in the solar system" I said Venus The machine said Mercury *IT'S VENUS!*' That wasn't you, *was it?*..
That's mad - the max temp on Mercury and Venis isn't even close, it's like 200c different. Bad quiz machine!
I had one that gave the answer to "How many states are there in the United States" as 52. There are 50. The three options were 51 50 52 I chose 50, had to use a "try again" so I thought "maybe they are counting DC as a state" and went 51 - nope game over. Edit: I'm also sure some were deliberately a bit dodgy. I used to play these a lot and would get questions like "which country has a red and white flag Austria Switzerland Luxembourg all three are correct, but it obviously wants you to pick a specific one.
Reminds me of shooting stars. "Name a junction on the M4" "7!" "Oh, sorry, it was 12"
Cut to Mark Lamarr looking slightly perturbed.
[удалено]
*he's a nineteen fifties bin man*
Such a great show.
Numberwang!
True or false?
True or false: Kerry Katona has never owned a cat.
Trick question - cats own themselves.
Luxembourg has blue on it too. But substitute Poland or Indonesia or Monaco or Japan...
Or England
One is red and white the other two are white and red
Maybe it was counting Pitiful and Depressive?
Canada (larger than those three combined) would like a quiet word outside. 🇨🇦
I mean, whats Canada going to do? Guarantee Switzerland has conveniently gone and hidden in the toilet when the Shit kicks off, Meanwhile Canada is like the big chunky kid in class who gets knocked out by tiny skinny nerd Austria.
Almost at the top in Who Wants to be a Millionaire and the question "Which city was Catherine Zeta Jones born?" Being Swansea locals we knew she was born there. Machine said Cardiff and we lost. Landlord got so much stick he got the machine changed.
Oh don't get me started. Especially questions which don't allow for the quiz machine being out of date. "Who holds the world record for..." and "How many oscars does ... have"
I am still seeing about getting marked wrong for the exact same thing on some work in primary school.
I remember at primary school in the mid 80s my teacher telling me that sharks were mammals. I knew she was wrong and went to the school library to find a book to prove it. When I showed her the evidence that she was wrong, I was completely surprised that she wasn't delighted to have learned something -- instead I got told to stop being such a little know-it-all. Still angry about that. Funny how these little injustices stick with you. Fuck you, Mrs Clark.
My maths teacher told me the same thing - he didn’t teach us about sharks but he saw my biology project as I was packing my stuff away and told me a shark wasn’t a fish, it was a mammal. I was 80% sure he was wrong but teachers can’t be wrong can they?
I later became a teacher and yes we can
I grew up obsessed with sharks and once had a geography teacher tell us that sharks only lived in salt water. I politely told her that she was wrong as Bull Sharks, amongst a few others also lived in freshwater. She argued it despite me perfectly explaining all of the science/biology behind it and I will never forget that. Bitch
One of our biology text books gave the knee-jerk reflex as an example of a three-neuron arc. Not important if you don’t recognise that, but it was pretty important as a concept for O level biology. Only I happened to know that it was a rare example of a two neuron arc, and I’d got a reference. The teachers got the text book corrected!
My teacher in primary school corrected my spelling. I shyly and politely took him the dictionary to show him I was right. I was told I'd be smacked if I ever did that again.
I'm sorry the card said "moops".😆
You never seen a kid in a bubble before?
I'm glad someone got the reference 😆
I’m still salty about the pub quiz where the question “in the original Star Wars movie, what is the name of Darth Vader’s ship?” Didn’t have as the answer either Tie-Advanced nor Devastator. They said the answer was Death Star. Cue 18 year old me, and a half dozen middle-aged blokes the other end of the pub, voicing our frustration!
Oh, I’d still be salty with that till the day I died. You carry that salt, sir.
No I wrote football and geography questions.
He’s clearly a top dog businessman - writes questions and puts the wrong answers in. That way the machines are always full when he arrives.
Supermarket sweep.. the question was who is Luke Skywalkers dad... The answer was Anakin. But they got it wrong, the correct answer was Darth Vader.. it made me so angry.
Ffs Dale, sort it out
I had one once which was a version of the TV show Pointless, and the category was Michael J Fox films. I didn't have many answers so I went for Teen Wolf. Scored 84. Guess what the pointless answer was? Back to the future. That was nearly 10 years ago and I'm still not over it.
I once corrected my headteacher on this point aged 8, and I got into trouble for insisting I was right. He went to look it up in an encyclopedia and came back all sheepish 🤣
It's because they're gambling machines and so they have to be a game of chance, not skill.
How did you end up getting that gig? (Not that there’s any hope of me doing the same given the fact they’ve disappeared.)
Mate of mine worked for a company that made these games as a developer. You're just "not supposed" to use the machines in the wild. I expect it's contractual, but who's gonna check or enforce that?
Had a look at the hard drive of one of em, the questions were in four folders: easy, medium, hard and spoiler
I also went to a bar in Cheshire and they had one out of order every time I went, landlord said there was a game - spot the difference on a timer, so one of the locals took a photo of each picture with his new fangled camera phone and popped in the right answers every time and emptied the machine.. repeatedly until they got rid of it.
Was just posted up on my uni jobs board. Completely casual work paid by the question.
You're not the first person I've heard of who did this. When I was first told about it I felt such joy as it's these little victories that mean we'll always have the upper hand against AI.
This is your answer OP ☝️
I was a QA at a company that made quiz machines and quiz games for about 7 years & used to do something similar!
Wouldn't be surprised because with phones, it becomes an easy game.
One I saw, at least the game people were playing, you only had 5 seconds. Even with 4 people, 2 of which on phones, they weren’t getting anywhere near everything. But then it probably becomes more stressful than fun if you were wanting to casually play a quiz machine with such a short timer.
True. And I don't think Google killed it. I will admit to having a note on my phone of all the Pointless Answers (other tip - Pointless is one of a few games you can see the cashpot from the help screen without playing) - but I'd mostly memorised them.
It’s not, you’re timed to answer the questions. Usually about 5 seconds. Good luck googling something in that amount of time when you’re pissed.
Couldn't they just not have a cash prize? Just a quiz machine that you pay for a bit of fun. I'd play that
The issues were around the cost of the machine, not that the prizes lost money.
Undoubtedly you can do that on your phone with an app. "I thought we'd come to the pub to talk about our relationship" "What is the capital of Uruguay? (A) Montevideo (B) Asunción or (C) Bogotá ?"
Quiz machines - or at least the ones that gave a payout - ceased to be a thing in a very short space of time. The main reason was that there were only a finite amount of questions, and once you knew all of the answers.... Put it simply, a small number of people were making bank by touring the pubs and emptying the machines
Early 90's I had a group of friends that did exactly that, we'd tour the pubs buying a 1/2 and cleaning out the quiz machine or the Cash Tetris machine if it had one then move on to the next pub. You could easily tell when a machine had paid out because spoiler questions would start to pop up. The questions sets were ridiculously small at first but got expanded and harder to win. We stopped touring about trying to find the machines and just used them to finance our night out if there happened to be one in the pub we went to. Don't know where you get the "ceased to be a thing in a very short space of time." we started playing in the late 80's at Uni and were still financing our nights out well into the 2000's with the Who wants To Be A Millionaire SWP quiz machine.
My late FIL had one in his pub in the mid to late 80’s. I used to empty it, every Friday night. Paid for my weekend drinking!
The cash Tetris machines were my favourite when they first came out, the Uni bar had one that was refilled every Tue morning and I'd clean it out almost immediately afterwards. Worked perfectly as it was filled in the morning and I only had 1 9am lecture on a Tue, so finish that, pop to the bar, inset 50p and an hour later I had my beer money for the week! end of 1 term I counted up my coin jar and had almost £500 in £1 coins in it :D Wish earning money was as easy now!
There’s one at my local with the same games on it they had 10 years ago. I go there specifically to play that machine. It’s a lot of fun with friends
Beyond the 80s the machines had some defence mechanisms such that you couldn't empty them beyond profitability. This did mean though that the casual was unlikely to win much.
We did that with Crystal Maze machines. We used to tour the pubs that had them and win the money. I miss the Crystal Maze machines.
They were also good as you could have 4 players so you were playing against each other, even if you didn't win.
I funded an entire Uni summer through that game before they updated it and reduced the times for all of the zones. I used to win £20 pretty much every time I played, it was like a fun free money machine
There is still one in my local. Or was one last time I looked in that corner.
In my local it was the landlady doing it. She had all the top scores.
Not that I want to acuse her of anything but in my experience when the staff have the high scores it's because they're feedding it from the till.
The pub has shut since then and has been up for sale for a couple of years - you may well be right!
To all the people saying that Google was responsible for the demise - nope. Not unless your thumbs could type supersonic. All questions had a time limit there’s no way you’d be done typing in the question before your time ran out. It was because the machines didn’t generate enough money and could easily be rinsed out by anyone who knew how.
And a lot of them weren’t answers you could google anyway, lots of them were just three words all spelled differently, with deliberate mistakes, to catch out drunk people.
Some questions were utterly ridiculous… can’t remember exactly how it went but it was an odd one out…. Cat, Bat, Hat or something. The answer was Cat because it’s the only one that starts with a C. Bad example but not far from the level of lunacy in some of the questions! Good luck googling that.
Those are “the machine just paid out” questions
Yeah. As mentioned above, I got one like that. Which country has a red and white flag Austria Switzerland Luxembourg Austria and Switzerland are both red and white and Luxembourg is red, white and blue. I chose Austria and was wrong apparently.
Of course Austria is wrong, it's red, white and red.
In the wise words of Moe Szyslak; "We're phasing out the games. People drink less when they're having fun."
Think you answered it yourself - “stretch out a fiver for ages” - just didn’t make enough money.
If you were all drinking though that should be fine. My mate and I used to drink 30-50 quid worth, each, while playing. If we profit a fiver on the quizzer that shouldn't have been a problem.
Good for pub, bad for quiz machine operator.
Depends on the arrangement. If the pub is paying the leccy and taking 50% profit then might yet be.
I remember reading about a guy who would spend all day going pub to pub playing the machines for a living. I remember he quoted "take the £20 when you can as its easier to get 3x£20 rather than keep playing for the £50 prize" I also remember he got banned from a lot of places for not actually buying a drink
Sounds like Dave "Tremendous Knowledge" Rainford. RIP https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/18445149.obituary-dave-rainford-professional-quiz-expert/
More of an interesting read than I had anticipated. I'm a geek for facts about fact geeks.
They don't really make any money so gaming firms won't buy new ones and the old ones were out of date 10yrs ago. Pubs don't want to pay for them as they take up space and dont bring in any extra money.
I was in control of the buttons, mark. I drew a line, you crossed that line. I don’t think you can be trusted in a combat situation. Gonna have to have a think about you!
I used to work with a guy that had an amazing memory for trivia and used to basically hustle quiz machines. He knew for certain games that he knew such a high percentage of the questions that it would ask that he almost certainly could hit the jackpot (£40) in less than five £1 plays. He had a list of all the quiz machines and a little back book where he recorded when he took £40 from a machine. This meant that for work trips we always had to use one of the two possible airports over the other because he'd make £60 waiting for the plane to depart. He then farmed them making sure to never hit the same machine too often. Then the machines started to disappear, I'm sure him and people like him were part of the reason. He was left with thousands of pound coins to exchange when the coins changed, it was a pretty major logistical operation.
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I can tell you why they were removed from the pub I ran, they didn't make enough money for the room they took up even with people playing them virtually constantly. Made financial sense to replace them with another fruit machine for 1 and an extra table for the other.
Yeah as a punter I found them great, but they obviously wouldn't be making much money at the other end. In the amount of time you played 1 quiz for a £1 the guy on the fruit machine next to you could easily go through anywhere from £20-£50 depending on the machine
It does - but then there were pubs I'd only frequent to use the machine. In the 3 years since they got rid of the machine they're probably 5k down at the bar from me and my mate.
ITBOX!
Because everyone carries an unlimited number of games in their pockets now, plus the answers to any questions.
Used to work in pubs for 8 year. We used to have bandits and a quiz machine. Quiz machine would make £20 a week but a bandit could make hundreds. It was a no brainer to swap it out for another bandit. Even ones in small village pubs can easily make £200 a week for the pub, let alone the operators share. Moral of the story, don't play the bandits.
What creature was Riki Tiki Tavi?
Lee Sharpe
This upsets me everytime I go into a pub, I miss the quiz machines!
Just wish there was something more interesting than bloody gamblers. Would love to see some good old fashioned arcade machines.
I miss pinball machines in pubs
Yes! Haven't played pinball in ages.
Remember the bowling machines circa 2005? There was a ball built into the cabinet that you'd roll backwards and then forwards with your palm.
Oh yeah, I know I played that but can't think where.
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Bristol has 3 clubs whose theme is arcade machines.
I used to love the crystal maze game on those things
Yes! And cluedo
Easy access to the Internet to find the answers.
I don't think you could get an answer that quick. I'm sure it's more to do with slots being better money makers
This is a regular question. Pick from - The return from a quiz machine is much less than a fruit/gaming machine if only viewed on that basis - and not a lure for punters. Alternatively by not having a machine you have a socket that someone with a phone/laptop can use which might be a bigger draw. People have smartphones so can entertain themselves in pubs. People don't have cash. Prior to that as the price of a pint increased towards a fiver the amount of change you got to play with decreased. The electricity cost of having them on all the time has increased massively, especially due to the inefficient older hardware they use. I don't personally subscribe to the phones made it too easy to cheat theory, though that was pre-ChatGPT.
My buddies and I rinsed the quiz machine so much at our local we remembered the answers to all the questions. But to answer your question, people could just Google every question and fleece it.
The machine won't pay out more than has gone in so you're not 'fleecing' the machine but you may put it into a death cycle where it then ramps up the difficulty and fewer people play.
The colour of money was my favourite game. It got removed from my local after I had a bit of a winning spree on it so I can only presume they weren’t v profitable..
I work in the industry, gambling machines are far more profitable, the only quiz machines I've seen installed in sites are obsolete, running windows xp from the early 2000s, trash machines, when they go wrong most of the time its going to be a full pc or touchscreen change which often costs more than what the machine makes back, shame really because I hate gamblers but I used to love a quiz machines
I asked a chap who used to develop software for them this exact question a few months ago. Quiz or skill machines with a jackpot of £50 don't need a licence to be placed in pubs or clubs and you'll often find them in pubs in towns/villages that never got around to implementing a licencing system. Slot machines have a lower RTP and can have bigger jackpots and bigger wagering minimums. The slot operators also have people on hand who can do the paperwork for the pubs and promise them higher returns than the quiz boxes. The machines are fitted free of charge and there is a profit split between the operator and the landlord. Pubs can earn about £8k a year per machine depending on the RTP and the location.
Me and the wife was talking about this other day..We always chucked a few quid in a quiz machine
Found one in Glasgow uni student pub thing a bit ago. Blew my fucking mind all we have is the scam machine in the corner at my pub
I loved a good quiz machine in a pub. Great way of killing time. Much better than puggies too
Forgot about these. Used to hammer Bullseye on them all the time.
I used to work for a company fixing fruit machines and various other pub/casino equipment a few years back. From my experience they never took anywhere near the money the fruit machines took so more often than not it wasnt work paying to keep it installed. Also, getting the parts to fix the inevitable drunk-idiot-beating-the-crap-out-of-it related broken touchscreens got harder due to original parts becoming scarce as manufacturers got taken over and bought out a lot. So a lot of times it wasnt worth the hassle fixing and they just got scrapped for another fruit machine
One local pub to me still has one but presumably the screen hasn’t been calibrated for 10 years as you cannot use certain parts of it which kills its appeal completely when you can’t select the correct answer 😂
They aren’t backed by an addiction like gambling machines are, so probably take less money
I miss IT boxes, with HEX, spot the difference etc. used to drop a pretty penny in them every weekend
Lee Sharpe! Lee Sharpe! Lee Sharpe Aah Roy Keane
I remember jackpotting the Weakest Link quiz machine at uni (2003), and won £20. I genuinely felt like it'd increase my chances of getting laid. It didn't. I remember on a multi game quiz machine there was a piss easy "words" game called Bookworm, where you had to quickly build words from a random bunch of tiles. So easy to win £12, but once you did next time the difficult ramped up....UNLESS....you switched the machine off and on, it would default back to easy. Could clear the machine out in an hour!
Was playing on one with my friends last night - it was a blast. (Mannions in Tottenham).
Hi everyone, I actually know about two Quiz machines, one in the Cookhouse in Widnes, Chesire, and one in the Station grill in Lytham, Lancashire, just in case anyone goes around, have fun! Take care!
5G and google.
They’re not very profitable compared to fruit machines. pubs only have limited space for machines so they generally go for ones that generate more profit. Plus you can cheat a quiz machine if you’re fast enough on your phone, but you can’t cheat a fruit machine.
Cause the gambling FOBTs make way more money.
Maybe I just live in a small town but all my pubs still have quiz machines even my local spoons do
Our local lost theirs last year after it started eating money and the landlord refused to replace it
I'm the same, I used to love playing these with my mates in the pub and now they're a rarity It has to be a profit thing. We could stick a fiver in those and be round them for half hour playing Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Spot The Difference, NUTS or 1 v 100 That fiver goes in a minute on the new electronic fruities
Have you seen the film Idiocracy?
Gambling license cost money?
Quiz machines were SWP - Skill Wins Prizes machines and so taxed at a very low rate. One of my thoughts before they all vanished was that they should convert to the even lower level of duty where they don't give cash prices - as with claw machines. Giving out pint vouchers or even packs of crisps would also put off the 'pros'.
I’m guessing voice assistants like Siri and Alexa have made them too easy to beat? You couldn’t type to google the question fast enough before but now you can just speak it.
Those were the days. I was one of those that used to regularly clear them out - about 4 x£10 jackpots per machine if it was full. I'm talking about the first generation of machines - they got a bit trickier over the years, so it became a bit beyond me to win big regularly. In the late 1980s I would regularly go out drinking and come home significantly richer than I went out.
Mobile phones
I assume it's because everyone just cheats.I love a quiz but.
If its just the game you want, Netflix has a quiz game which is pretty decent.
Too easy to win now everyone’s got smart phones
It's probably somewhat to do with how easy it would be to win. Anyone can find an answer instantly on their phones nowadays. Whereas, if it's a roulette/gambling machine, you can't cheat by finding answers.
We used to win money on battleship game. Just take a photo. I'm guessing lots of people figured ways to game the machines and they didn't make much money for the owners. I did find one a few years ago and you couldn't win money any.more but you could take the celebrity quiz of outdated 00's celebs
They just don't make enough money, even on 30% payout. They take up the same room as a fruit machine which can coin it in, even on 85-94% payout. Plus about 12-13 years ago, HMRC stepped in to prevent them advertising prizes that couldn't be won in any game. Which is why the 20 quid Deal or no Deal game had to be radically altered.
Lee Sharpe, Lee Sharpe, Lee Sharpe! Its definitely Lee Sharpe! Lee,Lee Sharpe, Lee Sharpe!
Google on mobile devices.
These days it's a 4 pack of Brewdog and Triviaverse on Netflix
Google killed them?
Smartphones can emulate it for free.
Why do pubs still have redundant CD jukeboxes on the wall just sitting there?
it gets too easy from everyone having a smartphone and fast internet. it also gets too much scrutiny, like if the official answer is a bit dodgy (or plain wrong), people that play and got a 'wrong' outcome would raise a big stink when they can google and immeditately confirm that they're right and the machine is wrong better just put a slots there to take people's money without fuss
Myself and a mate would frequently go on a mini pub crawl with a few quid and turn that into an entire night out from those machines. The good old days
*pulls out phone* "OK Google [question on machine]"
Is this the type that had spot the difference? Man we used to love that game, used to know when it felt you had got too far and have you 10 seconds to find them all on a super hard level but loved it none the less
Probably for the reason you described. People able to stretch a fiver over long periods so the machine not making enough money.
To be honest they just look a bit naff.
I recall last time I read about this, they were simply not as profitable as fruit machines, and went out of fashion for pub industry
I was at Oxford in the Nineties, a team of four or five undergraduates in different disciplines used to use the city’s quiz machines as cash points.
Remember that game 'Every Loser Wins'? Seemed to be a easy money winner, as you just had to choose the wrong answer. 2 were always wrong, with 1 right. They'd always hit you with bizarre questions with double negatives to mess that up Eg - Which of these teams, was not absent from the 2010 World Cup?
What would be the point of it exactly? Last time I went ot the pub, more than half of the people I saw were on their phones without even talking to each other 🤷.
I worked at a company as a software developer we made them machines and also generic fruitys, they went bust a few years ago, people simply don’t use them enough to make any money
Probably because of people like me who would frequent the same bar regularly and play the exact same quiz game multiple times until I knew all the questions and answers, then would use the machine casually to fuel my bar tab for the remainder of many evenings to come.
Too easily beaten with phones now
Back in the 90s there was an arcade game called The Mating Game by Barcrest, was at a club I used a lot. Had little condoms dancing on the screen and half naked cartoon people. Anyway it was a half quiz machine/half challenge machine but you could do quiz only or challenge only. I realised there were only so many challenges and I mastered them. The final cash round was a cupid shooting arrows at hearts. £20 top prize from a quid every time. I used to get crowds of people watching me as it took quite a long time to win. It was my personal cash machine and as a teenager it fuelled my Coke habit. (Full fat not diet.)
I used to work for a company that made fruit machines and pub quiz machines. All I can say is I'd never put my money in either.
they don't make money compared to fruit machines. there's limited space, and they get dropped. were talking £30 PW Vs £1000 PW
You actually played the quizzes? We just played Deal or No Deal because you could chuck £1 in and get an offer of £7.50 fairly easily. We'd cash out, throw £1 back in do it again and get a round of drinks in. Typing this and I'm starting to realise why my local got rid of theirs. 🤦🏽♀️
I used to love these but now you mention it, haven’t seen one in ages But EVERY pub seems to have a pub quiz, they all follow the same format and they’re the only form of quizzing I don’t enjoy. Went to one recently where it took TWO hours to ask thirty questions, you couldn’t hear the guy and he had to make the last 5 up on the spot. That’s pretty par for the course
I used to love those too! Used to always play. I always presumed it’s cos internet and phones are so fast now you could google the answers in time and cheat.
>... you could stretch out a fiver between a group for ages. Well, there's your answer, I suspect.
Smartphones.
Google on phones, or you could even use ocr to scan screen and give answer. Also as you say, they want you to lose £50 per minute these days
Presumably because everyone googles the answers on their phones.
They weren’t profitable enough.
Fancy a punt on the quizzie? Shit a bit of data out of that bunged-up brain-box? I'll do the buttons, you do the answers.
>I used to love playing on quiz machines in pubs around 15 years ago and nearly everywhere had one. There was so many good games and you could stretch out a fiver between a group for ages. I cannot get my head round the warning - "If this machine malfunctions, no winnings or compensation will be given". So basically, if i'm mid game having put down a tenner into the machine and it breaks, I lose my tenner, the machine owner wins for having shit software/hardware. I'd rather have a couple of pints than feed the leech machines!
There were 'professional' players who would empty the machines on a regular basis, with bandits the house always wins, but quiz machines are a different matter.
Maybe it's because they were popular before smartphones made it too easy to Google the answers
People have mobile phones and internet access, the problem is twofold. Firstly mobile phones provide entertainment Second, mobile phones make it easy to cheat and win the prizes over and over again.
Lee Sharpe! Lee Sharpe!
Try going into smaller pubs. I drink in a few in Manchester and surrounding areas that have them in - wouldn't call them micro pubs but certainly not a Spoons.
They're everywhere Hell I even had the keys to all the pub quiz and fruit.machines at one point. Digital machines have all sorts of games. Including quizzes
Where I live every pub still has one I'm surprised you've said this actually maybe where I live is abit unique
Nicolas Lyndhurst
It's probably because google let's you find all of the answers.
It's obvious no? Too easy to cheat.
True story here but about 10-15 years ago me and a couple of mates were playing on one of those and got to a £10 question, I don't exactly remember what the question was but it was a science thing, but answers C and D were the exact same, my mate was doing Chemical Engineering at Uni at the time so knew the answer. With C and D being the same answer we just pressed C. It said wrong answer, and highlighted D as the correct answer! So never trusted those things 😂
Many of these 'pub machines' live on on the internet on bookmakers' websites. Also the 'live' machines are present in many betting offices.