What caused the demise of quiz machines in UK pubs?
Posted by Few_House_5201@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 170 comments
I can’t remember the last time I saw a quiz machine. They were great fun and really cheap entertainment for when conversation ran dry.
Why don’t we see them anymore? Also same goes for fruit machines but I guess they’ve just been usurped by the casino style slots.
JavaRuby2000@reddit
I worked at a company that made them. They simply found casino machines to be more popular and pivoted. We also designed games for the US and Hong Kong and they were a much larger market than a few UK pubs with Hex Quiz or Sam Fox spot the difference.
Mobile wasn't really a factor as the company also embraced iOS from the beginning and were porting all the quiz games to iOS in 2009 but, even on mobile fruit machines generate a lot more cash than trivia games.
yodelmiester@reddit
Music quiz machine kept me and a mate in beer when skint, and money, knew answers, the landlord cottoned on and got them to put random questions in it, bad idea, soon sussed them
Academic_Visual116@reddit
In my experience Quiz Machines suffered from same problem as a lot of things pub related, and in general, in people for a better term 'misusing' them and taking the fun out of it.
To me , quiz machines were never about making money, they were something to chuck a couple of quid in , pass some time, have a laugh with your mates, and maybe sometimes win a modest amount back...but then the 'professionals' appeared on the scene, studying for days, trying to suss ways to scam the machine, and rip as much money as they possibly can, as often as the can, never happy with what they get, always greedy for more thus forcing pub owners to take short term and machine manufacturers longer term action to combat it.
Just like every place that had karaoke, again intended to be a bit of fun, with people singing popular, catchy well known stuff to get a bit of atmosphere going started to get the folk turning up who thought 'karaoke' said 'Talent Contest', were genuinely expecting to be 'discovered' that night and would sing slow, obscure dirges and growl and anyone who dared to speak during their 'performance'
Just like ever Pub that has a regular Quiz Night, intended to get a bit of custom in on a Tuesday Night, get folk out of house midweek and get a catch up and bit of fun with their mates, has that one team that turn up with clipboards, matching folders etc, are absolute sticklers for 'the rules' being enforced , when it suits them of course, win 9 weeks out of 10 and kick off and argue the toss about some minor detail of a question they got wrong that cost them 'the win' the one week they don't win...
BINGGBONGGBINGGBONGG@reddit
there was a fella in my town that was banned from every Crystal Maze machine in every pub after he spent months rinsing them in a careful rotation.
simpler times. back when a man could simply cheat at a quiz machine to pay for his nights out. jumpers for goalposts. etc.
Reg_Vardy@reddit
I did that. It was easy to tell if the machine was ready to pay out by watching the final event in the Crystal Dome. Lots of gold and not much silver meant I would be guaranteed a win. I could beat the individual events 95% of the time.
BINGGBONGGBINGGBONGG@reddit
you weren’t haunting essex pubs in the early 90s were you?
Reg_Vardy@reddit
Not guilty :) It was a university campus with several machines, I'd wander around once a day and collect the prizes
BINGGBONGGBINGGBONGG@reddit
fair enough then. that would have been an amazing coincidence tho!
Lammtarra95@reddit
Quiz machines would be harvested by "professional" pub-quizzers nursing half a shandy. This is probably why they died out. Nowadays, with Siri and the interwebs on every phone, they'd be ripe for plucking even by non-egghead drinkers.
Ok-Opportunity-3546@reddit
If you read the thread pip_goes_pop posted they never worked like that
They regulated the payouts in other ways
CrazyMike419@reddit
We were emptying the machines at my local pubs in the early 2000s using primitive mobile internet.
Most were easy with primitive search engines. They often had repetitive questions.
Another machine was totally defeated by camera phones. The poor thing was designed before them being a thing. I forget the name of it, but it was based on a TV show where you had to choose top middle or bottom and avoid "hot spots". Like the show, it would display the screens getting randomised and show the final position for a fraction of a second lol
dudius399@reddit
Ahhhh ... Strike it lucky/rich
We had a team of 3, who each tried to memorise one row (not always successfully) 🙄
Dapper-Message-2066@reddit
Some of them totally worked like that. Some games would be flawed, and a skilled player could milk them. I know people how used to travel around different towns looking fo certain games, in order to rinse the machines. Literally made thousands.
SeaweedClean5087@reddit
I remember seeing a guy regularly around the pubs in my local area when I was younger get asked to not play the quiz machines. He looked to be making good money until the owners of the establishment caught on.
Ok-Blackberry-3534@reddit
We did it when I was at uni. Eventually, if it didn't want to pay out, it would ask really complicated maths questions.
SeaweedClean5087@reddit
I don’t think they were that sophisticated in the 80s.
Ok-Blackberry-3534@reddit
Yeah, this was around 2000.
Lammtarra95@reddit
Not read it but did meet a couple of quizzers who claim to have had it off back in the day. OK read it now. Looks like there were attempts to defend against these semi-pro players, so no real contradiction.
BINGGBONGGBINGGBONGG@reddit
pffffft. you said ‘had it off’
daddy-dj@reddit
fnar fnar fnar
Steve2911@reddit
There were definitely machines that worked purely on getting the answers to the questions right without any minigames or other nonsense. My uni had one that we loved using because the questions were entertainingly brutal (and smartphones were in their infancy and not fast enough to beat the machine with).
terryjuicelawson@reddit
Some did, they were a rather dry format where answer all the questions and it paid out. But they would give a question no one would know the answer to later on - third place in a Grand National in 1986 or something. People could memorise these or tell when it was in a good mood by judging the early questions. The ones they could regulate were where it ended up with a game, it could be literally impossible as there wouldn't be enough time. So quite glad a few people could milk them, the machines were a con anyway.
ProgrammerComplete17@reddit
Basically this.
Same reason fruit machines in pubs are now a rarity. Pro players were skinning them alive so your average punter had no chance.
Dry-Magician1415@reddit
Seems pretty obvious that would happen in hindsight.
Their question banks can’t be THAT extensive so if you got hold of the list of questions you could study it, learn all the answers and go and make a killing. £500 a day seems like it’d be totally doable at least. Especially if you lived somewhere with a lot of pubs.
cuccir@reddit
I remember a couple of times getting to essentially unanswerable questions.
One was something about the winner of a youth-age English gymnastics championship tournament from 20 years previously. It was a best of 4 question so I suppose you could be lucky, but I suspect the machine had other questions like this up its sleeve.
LowAspect542@reddit
Id expect they may also have some questions where it purposely had the answer wrong.
togtogtog@reddit
Mobile phones...
shatnersbassoon123@reddit
Not even - I had the exact same predicament of Op and I could not believe my local pub with a quizzy had replaced it with slot machines. So we went to another pub that used to have a quiz and lo and behold also replaced with slot machines. For some god forsaken reason the slot machines won’t die
kinellm8@reddit
Because you can’t search for the answers on slot machines
Rlonsar@reddit
A lot of people are saying mobile phones and being able to look up the answers. Whilst this is certainly relevant, I don't think it holds water as the real reason.
I still regularly seen them circa 2012 and a bit beyond. We already had Internet enabled phones at that time. But even if current, super fast 5g, free WiFi etc. Surely the quiz machine even if it pays out is still a net earner for the business, something of a loss leader. A group of 4 around the quizzy will keep buying drinks the whole time they are in. If you just reduce the payouts, I don't see how it does anything other than provide another attraction for people to come in, stay, and spend.
What am I missing here? Bring back the quizzes. The fun was in the game, not in winning. Same logic as the puggy.
happyhippohats@reddit
I think what you're missing is that it costs them money to have a quiz machine, they're usually rented not owned, so it's a cost/benefit calculation on whether the extra income they get from the engagement is worth the expenditure to have it.
Rlonsar@reddit
They could just buy one outright. I know a lot of bars rent pool tables and a part of that arrangement is that the company they rent from will do the maintenance on it, re-felt it etc. I dunno, still just seems to me that buying one outright as a one off would be beneficial. But I don't own a bar so they've surely looked at their books and decided to get rid. Still miss them though.
flownthecoop98@reddit
You should think of it less as rent and more like insurance lol, anything in a busy drinking venue will get ruined pretty quickly and it's risky to pay for upkeep yourself if there's a company offering the equipment and maintenance as a package.
Long_Repair_8779@reddit
Not just that, they would give you like 10 seconds per question. You’d have to be really on it to be able to read the question, type it in, search, and get a definitive answer all within 10 seconds. Most of the questions were niche enough that you would really have to type the full question to get the answer. Oh and do all of that when you’re 4 beers in too it doesn’t get easier
srm79@reddit
The ones I remember usually had a skill element as well, so if it didn't want to pay out it'd make you do the impossible tasks to bank your winnings and it'd lose and the machine kept your money
Most_Moose_2637@reddit
Or learn the answers which is also feasible.
mrmidas2k@reddit
That used to be, back when storage was expensive, but now a 4 quid SD card can fit an entire Megadrive romset on it, the problem now would be writing enough unique questions.
Most_Moose_2637@reddit
Yes, exactly, I was thinking about this too. The questions and answers are curated things so and can go out of date, so the machine suppliers probably need to licence the questions from a company to author them, rank them in difficult (this is a £20 question, etc.) and make sure they pull the ones that are superseded (highest points scored by a UK heptathlete used to be Jess Ennis-Hill, now it's KJT).
Can you tell I used to enjoy a quiz machine? 😂
HundredHander@reddit
We used to do this back in the day. We'd always play the same quiz machine half a dozen times every week and there were quite a few memorised answers.
ThinkAboutThatFor1Se@reddit
I’ve seen people use apps to help win on those fruit machines.
Apparently it is a thing if you know what you’re doing.
HundredHander@reddit
It's really not. People will believe what they want, but those machines pay out on fixed odds.
happyhippohats@reddit
That's true, but you do have a better chance of winning when you learn how to play them.
Two people playing the same way have the same chance of winning, but someone who knows how to play is more likely to win than someone just randomly pressing buttons.
They're not like US style slot machines where it's literally just chance...
JoeyJoeC@reddit
So it doesn't matter if you answer the questions wrong it will pay out the same?
LiamJonsano@reddit
A fruit machine doesn’t have questions, I think you’ve misread
JoeyJoeC@reddit
Correct!
Venus_Gospel@reddit
They run entirely on scripted RNG. The second you hit spin the exact outcome is determined already before the first reel even stops.
Nothing you do will influence the outcome.
They work on an RTP (Return to player), typically around 90-95%. That means on average, every £1 you put in will return 90-95p, but this is assuming an infinite sample size.
You could put 20p in and win the £100 jackpot first spin, you can put £1000 in and not even see a feature hit once.
Treat them not as a financial investment, but as paying for the dopamine hit of the flashy colours and graphics going off
LiamJonsano@reddit
I can’t believe people think it’s anything else. When it was a one arm bandit (it’s in the name so even then?) I could get it, pull it a bit more softly and maybe it won’t spin so much… but when you’re literally pushing a button?
Come on now
andimacg@reddit
Slot machine technician here, that is absolutely not a thing. Not with modern machines at least, I can't speak past 20 years ago.
linksarebetter@reddit
you have seen people use apps and play those machines.
Nothing helps you win more in a fixed odds game.
SmallJeanGenie@reddit
Nah
happyhippohats@reddit
But also because people don't use them as much because if they get bored they have a phone to entertain them
jmcomms@reddit
SWP machines probably take a lot less income per hour than a fruit machine (AWP).
shatnersbassoon123@reddit
Yeah i do sympathise with pubs being stuck between a rock and a hard place. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. This particular place got rid of the quiz machines and the pool table - and given it’s the least pleasant of the 3 pubs on the high street there is now legit no reason to ever step back in it again for me and my friends.
jmcomms@reddit
Given the cost of alcohol in pubs these days I'm amazed any stay open. Most have opted to make their money on food (high prices without most of it being duty paid to HMRC) but now people can't afford to eat out often either.
I still have a pub where you can go and just drink, play pool or even do a real quiz or karaoke - but it's not cheap enough to go to every night as I used to do when younger.
KeyboardChap@reddit
The duty on a pint of beer is less than 50p...
TheFlyingHornet1881@reddit
A lot of pubs need a niche or a USP. A generic but independent pub will struggle against chains and staying in, nowadays pubs need something more. Whether that's different drinks, being linked to an independent brewers, internal or external decor, entertainment, etc. there usually needs to be a selling point to justify cost now.
jmcomms@reddit
It's not easy for sure. It can't help that youngsters are more likely to not drink than previous generations. They'll be quite happy vaping and on their phones. They can do that on the street or in a park.
I realise that's a bit of a generalisation but I think it's fairly accurate from my own (anecdotal) experience.
shatnersbassoon123@reddit
What’s interesting is here in a fairly rural part of the U.K., the breweries themselves have started serving directly. Quite a few of them get in a different food van each week and on a Friday or Saturday they’re absolutely heaving in an industrial site or farmyard. Tried to get pizza at one the other day and it was a 2 hour wait!
peahair@reddit
Used to repair them, went to a call for one that had ran out of money and gone out of order back in the early noughties and between the landlord and I, we realised that the spot the difference game was the killer for the machine: punters had photographed the screens, found the differences then rinsed the machine of its cash float. The machine was removed from site, never to be seen again.
petey_love@reddit
When I used to work at a local pub, the slot machines made £1000s every few weeks, the 'IT box' as we called it, which had all the games and quizzes didn't make that in a year.
ChelseaAndrew87@reddit
Much quicker to lose on slots. Could be £20 down in the time it takes to answer a few questions
shatnersbassoon123@reddit
That’s very fair and makes a lot of sense. I’d be curious if anyone has ever done reporting on the spend the clientele each brings though. I know in my particular friend group that a quiz machine or pool table may swing a decision as to which pub we go to and could subsequently be holed up there all evening.
Whereas we have absolutely zero desire to play a slot machine and in my casual (and undeniably judgmental view here), it seems they’re typically guys who prop up the bar sipping on a pint and are usually the type to make the place a little less inviting for potential customers.
Reg_Vardy@reddit
Quiz machines give you a very limited amount of time to answer questions (5-10 seconds). There isn't time to formulate a Google search, wait for the answer, read the answer, and then hit the correct option.
Machines that are in danger of losing money throw out more and more ridiculous questions, and reduce the amount of time available to almost nothing.
Jebus_UK@reddit
Yeah, I had a mate who played them professionally back in the day. "Skill with Prizes"
He had a guy who dealt in quiz machines and just learnt them for the most part. Made a fair bit of money for a few years. Got into some sketchy situations with landlords though. Had a gun pulled on him once.
ProgrammerComplete17@reddit
They were doable before the advent of smartphones (source : was doing them myself). Truth is they just weren't as profitable for operators as fruit machines.
beeurd@reddit
They don't make as much money.
Mediocre_Trade2575@reddit
The only one I've ever seen was in Glasgow SU in 2021 or 2022. People are saying about smartphones but iirc this one gave you something like 5 seconds to put in your answer - nowhere near long enough to type it into Google or ask Siri
djashjones@reddit
Fruit machines are big earners in a pub. They usually have several round my way.
daddy-dj@reddit
When I was a teenager in the 90s, I spent a ridiculous amount of money on an arcade machine called Adders and Ladders, and another one called Cops and Robbers. Reading the thread linked earlier, seems I can emulate them with MAME... That's my weekend sorted then!
cupidstunt01@reddit
Google:
Cashman cops & robbers
Cashman Hyper viper
Also has other machines!
daddy-dj@reddit
Thank you, mate.
cupidstunt01@reddit
No worries, I hope you enjoy playing them as much as I do!
Carnationlilyrose@reddit
I have never used a slot machine since working in a pub nearly 50 years ago as a student and watching the rep from the machine company adjusting the odds because it had been paying out too much. If they could do that then, I'm quite sure they can do it now to make sure their profits are as high as they can get them without the punters smelling a rat.
djashjones@reddit
It doesn't interest me either, rather waste money on the jukebox.
Few_House_5201@reddit (OP)
My local has 3 of the casino ones but they’re just boring, no judgment like the old games used to be. Just press the button and hope for the best.
MunkeeseeMonkeydoo@reddit
Also a lot of them are linked so I'm wondering if the percentage payout is applicable on average or per machine? This would f*ck up the vampires who watch to see how much has been put in.
Roberto49152@reddit
I used to program games for them as a side hustle.. used to make a tidy bit of cash off them before the box operators started demanding licenced products which we couldn't compete with...
Found a video on YouTube of our most successful game. https://youtu.be/H--WIXPMmHY
6033624@reddit
Mobile phones..
BlueChickenBandit@reddit
When I was at college we used to have 3 or 4 of us that would regularly go to the pub at lunch and have a pint or two while playing the quiz machine. Between us we would usually do quite well and could chuck a few quid in and end up with £20 or so which would then be spent at the pub with the machine. I don't think the landlady cared that there was a small group as whatever we won was spent before we left anyway, if we hadn't I'm sure the machine would have been turned off or taken away as they weren't that hard with a small quiz team.
ibaconbutty@reddit
They upgraded to those screens with loads of different games on, so I stopped playing them.
dweedman@reddit
Hadn't seen one in years before coming across one at Stokers public house in the north of Bristol a few weeks ago - I honestly don't think a phone would help, nowhere near enough time to answer.
grey-door-frame@reddit
Loved the game "Pints Makes Prizes". Miss having a pint and having a go or two on the various quiz games :(
immaturewhisky@reddit
Maybe because the quality of the degraded as they got more popular?
I was once asked: "When did Frank Sinatra?" With just 4 date options. Saw similar questions like this pop up all the time so I stopped playing them.
YSOSEXI@reddit
Intelligence...
markgtba@reddit
If I had played one of these monsters it would have put me off playing again 😂
Healthy-Grocery6055@reddit
I went to the Hole In The Wall pub in Waterloo just before last Christmas. They had an old school Pub Quiz machine (the one that had Nuts etc). Sure enough my mates and I were all playing it. (And failing badly).
I mastered one back in the 90s, it was called The Mating Game, by Barcrest, it had semi nude cartoon characters and dancing condoms etc, part quiz, part challenges and the final round you were Cupid and had to shoot Red hearts. I got so good at it that it became my own personal cash machine, regularly converting my Quid into 20.
HailToTheKingslayer@reddit
"I was in charge of the buttons, Mark. I drew a line. You crossed that line. I'll have to have a think about you, I don't know if you can be trusted in a combat situation."
Maximum_RnB@reddit
A mate and I used to play them when we were at uni in the late 80s. We learned all the answers on the main ones and cleared over £10k in about 6 months.
Whilst we were driving all over South Wales and the West of England doing this we would bump into the same people who were doing exactly the same thing. Some were making a lot more than we were.
The machines didn’t make any money until they started adding bullshit ‘skill’ requirements, at which point the jig was up and we packed it in.
Then the relaxation of gambling laws made bandits and other gaming machines a lot more lucrative for the operators.
pip_goes_pop@reddit
This is a good thread about it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualUK/comments/1e7vjvi/do_pub_quiz_machines_still_exist/
Far_wide@reddit
That was a great read. although doesn't quite seem to answer the question. So they're rigged just as fruit machines are, but if they're able to regulate their payouts then what's actually caused them to stop being around?
726wox@reddit
Everyone started having Google in their pocket
Gone_For_Lunch@reddit
Did you read that link? Having access to Google to get the answers will not help you with those machines.
UnacceptableUse@reddit
Only the last part of the game is what they're saying is a con. If everyone figured out that they could just Google and get to the end and they'd still lose to a game of chance then they'd stop playing. Whereas with fruit machines people generally already know that it's a game of chance based on when the last payout was
DeapVally@reddit
Some games. Others were just questions. Pub Quiz threw out some ridiculous questions fairly early on if it didn't want you to win. That stupid question with a ridiculously narrow range of dates for the guesses can't gatekeep the top prize if you can insta-search.
quiglter@reddit
Yeah but that seems to be more about specific quiz games where the answers led to a final minigame. The Who Wants to be a Millionaire game, for example, was just straight up questions. Which did get more difficult depending on payout but still defeatable by googling.
heliotropic@reddit
If everyone has the answers on their phone and uses them then the machines are permanently pushed into “too hard to win” mode, which is not at all fun to play.
Far_wide@reddit
Could be it....certainly that thread has put me off the idea of playing them again even if they were there!
Schmocky@reddit
Used to work in a pub. They barely made money and most of the time they broke and it took over a week at times to get them fixed just to die within a few days again. Gamblers make way more money to even bother with quiz machines now
duggee315@reddit
All the other comments are valid, but there is another factor. Pubs have changed, due to the pub industry moving from being run by actual breweries (breweries opening pubs to sell the beer they brew), to being run by properties management companies who trade beer and call themselves breweries. This shift squeezed pubs, many closed, those that survived were forced to adopt a business model that was the same as everyone else. Which means every pub has to be a restaurant, menus are the same, all aimed at being family friendly. Partly, this shift changed the local boozer with a clubhouse vibe, into a family friendly, bar/restaurant. Lads playing games with a pint was not as profitable as families buying lunch and drinks and leaving to turn a table over. Breweries have a stranglehold over pubs now, and u follow the profitable model or you close.
theMooey23@reddit
My mate did!
He travelled around the country for years winning up to a grand a week. Daily Mail did an article on him "The 60k Quiz King"
MooseMaterial@reddit
Mobile Phones & AI probably, can get answers to anything within seconds
iakiak@reddit
Dear Mr Ai,
What caused the demise of quiz machines in UK pubs?
Dapper-Message-2066@reddit
Their demise happened long before the generative AI plague though.
widdrjb@reddit
They got repeatedly stripped by people with good memories.
Dapper-Message-2066@reddit
Only a few badly designed ones did.
ProgrammerComplete17@reddit
More of them than you would think were doable. The question banks really weren't very big on them.
Dapper-Message-2066@reddit
But most had other ways to dey you money, no matter how many questions you kept answering. eg
The time you got could sometimes get as low as fraction of a second.
They'd throw questions out like "What is 1435356473 x43509093457 ?" at you.
The 'game' gimmick aspect alongside the questions would just contrive to give you nothing, etc, just like the reels of a Fruity.
ProgrammerComplete17@reddit
Only certain games were doable and others were basically unplayable.
Similar to fruit machines really in that some games were very doable and others weren't worth touching
iani63@reddit
We had one n our local, free beer for a month or so...
DameKumquat@reddit
The barman in my college bar could see the quiz machine and learn the answers from watching students play. And rapidly made himself lots of money, to the point the machine often wouldn't pay out - so everyone else stopped using it.
vctrmldrw@reddit
You don't need ai. You just use voice search and read out the question. Takes a second to get the answer.
Dapper-Message-2066@reddit
Their demise happened a long time before that sort of thing was possible too. And there are plenty of ways to write questions that can't easily be looked up in this way.
Plus machines had ways to regulate their payouts anyway, so wouldn't lose money.
tomelwoody@reddit
Another overuse of the word AI
miked999b@reddit
Smartphones. To a degree being able to look up answers (although whether you could reliably do that in five seconds or whatever seems somewhat debatable), but mainly because everyone's got a casino in their pocket.
danabrey@reddit
Google.
Viazon@reddit
Lee Sharpe. Lee Sharpe. It's Lee Sharpe. It's definitely Lee Sharpe. Lee Sharpe! Lee Sharpe!
Oh, it's Roy Keane.
seadcon@reddit
Haha
Yes, it was Roy Keane's cross that Lee Sharpe had to improvise to back heel that memorable goal against Barcelona in the 94/95 Champions League.
Probably Lee Sharpe's best goal for United. Certainly the one I remember the most!
miked999b@reddit
I'd totally forgotten about that until now!
fannyfox@reddit
Alright Briefcase
seadcon@reddit
Yes... because random football trivia gets you far in life, doesn't it.
Gerrydealsel@reddit
Briefcase mong.
jWalwyn@reddit
He was a mongoose!
Active-Strawberry-37@reddit
Of course it is. Everyone knows Manchester United’s 1st Korean player was Yung Li Sharp
Few_House_5201@reddit (OP)
Ahh. Giggsy.
bleach1969@reddit
Jumpers for goalposts..mmm..marvellous
Fenpunx@reddit
Profit killed them. Make more money off gamblers.
Prestigious-Mind-315@reddit
Needs a separate license, as it's gambling.
New-Assumption-3106@reddit
Takes me back to the 80s in Blackpool when I was at college and there was the same triv machine in every pub in town. We realised there was a small window in the otherwise screen-printed glass front of the machine that displayed a counter. The number on the counter was indicative of how likely the machine was to pay out. Can't remember exactly, but if the number was low it was because the machine had won against the punters for the last 20 tries or so. In those circumstances the machine would give more time to answer each question of the ten or so before the jackpot, which was £10. If the machine had jackpotted, that counter went up and the time to answer the questions dropped dramatically.
If you went into a pub just after it opened at lunchtime, there was a very good chance that the last hour or two of the previous evening that the triv machine had been challenged by a bunch of drunken idiots and hadn't paid out for some time. Ripe for a go at the jackpot. We often toured a few pubs in the town over the course of an hour or so and jackpotted a bunch of machines to finance our next evening out. It also helped that the pool of questions wasn't huge, and a lot of them were cribbed directly from Trivial Pursuit, which we played a lot. Fun times.
impendingcatastrophe@reddit
It was because they didn't make the pub much money compared to slot machines.
I used to go play them, and on a bad night I would be a tenner down. On a good night a tenner up.
But apart from me and my friends buying drinks, the pub made no money from it. Compare that with some mugs on a slot machine who could lose several hundred over the evening.
petey_love@reddit
When I used to work at a local pub, the slot machines made £1000s every few weeks, the 'IT box' as we called it, which had all the games and quizzes didn't make that in a year.
SuperExstatic@reddit
Never played a pub quiz machine that gave you more than 5 seconds after you’ve read the question and checked the multiple choice answers to actually answer
reggieko13@reddit
I loved them.i assume it is because they can get far more money from the other types of machine then they do on the quiz ones
Consistent-Pirate-23@reddit
Quiz machines wouldn’t give you the time to google an answer.
The difference is skill vs chance
A quiz machine regulates its payouts based on previous players. If the previous players have been rubbish you might win a few pounds relatively easily. If the person before you won a decent amount then you are working hard for £1
They split their questions into different question banks. Let’s have an example Bank 1 is really easy stuff, bank 2 a little harder, bank 3 is niche but can be memorised, bank 4 is difficult and bank 5 is very tough. In this instance bank 4 and 5 come with an instant knock out or two chances scenario. You can’t memorise the answers without putting a lot of money in. If it’s a subject you know, it’s possible to win fairly often, albeit not much more than you put in.
Fruit machines are chance, it decides when it needs to pay out and how much.
Wacky_Badger@reddit
There's still one in The Victoria pub in Swindon. Had a couple of gos on it waiting for a gig to start. It's the classic Pub Quiz one I don't think I've seen in more than a decade.
Few_House_5201@reddit (OP)
I heard they dropped an atomic bomb on Swindon? Did £15 worth of damage.
Wacky_Badger@reddit
If they did, you wouldn't notice anyway. If they didn't, they need to. I moved away 9 months ago, the best decision I ever made.
coachhunter2@reddit
Because you can look up the answers on your phone
ancon_1993@reddit
Pub I worked at had 2 puggies. One was constantly breaking down and we had to call engineers out multiple times a week, so we replaced it with one of the digital machines with different gambling and quiz games. The older buggy became like 80% of the use and the digital one was only ever used when the old school puggy was unavailable. People just didn't want to use it and preferred the old school ones so we replaced it with another of the old school ones
williamshatnersbeast@reddit
There’s one in the Black Cock Inn near Kielder Water. Hadn’t seen one in years and then stayed up there a month or so ago and there it was!
As people have said, though, being able to google answers in seconds killed any profitability of them. Shame really as I used to love making it all the way to the ‘jackpot’.
SingerFirm1090@reddit
Around my way, it's pubs that have gone, never mind the machines in them!
Pinkskippy@reddit
Not only mobile ‘phone, but people/groups rapidly figured out they used a limited number of questions and once they knew a lot of them the machines become net losers of money rather than gaining profit. The first Pot Black pub machine/games was an early victim of this. The suppliers had to quickly come out with a second disc of answers as the questions of the first disc were quickly remembered. Some pubs resorted to turning them off until the new question disc was installed as they were losing so much money.
mk6971@reddit
My local Chef and Brewer has one.
Crivens999@reddit
Everyone getting good at it. Some friends of mine were particularly good at trivia, and essentially it was always a free night when I went out with them
FiveFiveSixers@reddit
The drinks cost 200+% more now and wages have gone up by a lot less.
seadcon@reddit
The reason is mobile phones.
I'd still use a quiz machine in a pub even if it didn't offer cash prizes though. The pool table, the jukebox and the dart board never dished out cash prizes. Not sure why the quiz machine ever needed to either?
R2-Scotia@reddit
They were a swindle anyway, you'd be about to win a fiver and it would ask for the result of an English 3rd division football match from 1927
Some mates and I once got hold of the floppy disk from one, it was based on an Acorn Archimedes home computer, but the questions were encrypted and we couldn't be arsed to try to crack it
FebruaryStars84@reddit
I worked at a company that made quiz machine games for 7 years as my first ‘proper’ job after Uni.
One of the last big projects I worked on was a machine that had quiz games plus direct links to social media sites too. But this was 2013, when everyone had a smartphone & could do all those things without needing to put £1 in a machine and have everyone around able to see what you were doing!
Defiled__Pig1@reddit
We had pints make prizes down to a science and it would pay for our drinks when we were hard up. There was also a deal or no deal fruit machine that we knew exactly when it would drop it's £90 jackpot. The 2 pubs no longer exist never mind the quiz machines. They were also where we would sneak in to get our fags out the machines as 14-16yo ne'er do wells.
Marxandmarzipan@reddit
I miss a good pub quiz machine, incredibly rare to see one nowadays. No interest in fruitys, but a good quiz machine was loads of fun.
EvilKerrison@reddit
Quiz machines were good to spend a few quid of loose change you had left in your wallet. Now contactless payments are the norm, most people don't carry cash any more, or don't carry as much, or don't pay for their drinks with it, so don't have change to get rid of. Some machines take contactless payments... but then if you win? More change you don't really want...
JimmyBallocks@reddit
have you heard of the smartphone and if so could you think of any possible way the presence of one could affect the playing of a quiz machine for cah prizes
Dapper-Message-2066@reddit
So why are pub quizzes still as popular as ever?
JimmyBallocks@reddit
a pub quiz relies on a bond of trust between the person running the quiz and all the people participating in the quiz enforcing a no-phone rule
the person running the quiz can choose not to give a prize to anyone who has been using their phone
can you think of any reasons where this might be a little harder to implement when it's a person playing a machine?
Dapper-Message-2066@reddit
Thanks for the attempt to be partonising, but it's trivial for a pub quiz machine to not lose money. In th same way a fruit machine regulates its payouts, so does a Quiz Machine.
lozz79@reddit
Probably the shame of getting caught puts most people off cheating. And it's not exactly difficult to spot.
_ShredBundy@reddit
Personalised questions, music rounds, competing against others in real time etc. Would also say there’s really no cap on how many people can participate in a pub quiz at one time (within reason), whereas only one person and a couple of their mates can use the machine.
ChargeMedium3730@reddit
Terry. He had it in for em for years, he would sit there with me every tuesday staring at his pint, squeezing the glass until his knuckles went white. I asked him whats up, is it yer mrs again? He shook his head slowly, and i saw his bottom lip tremble, my heart was breaking for him, i'd never seen Terry like this, but the past few weeks, he has changed. Then the quiz machine, monopoly i think was, did its little jingle, and Terry just flipped, fucking flipped. What he did to that poor machine just can't really be described here... i dont think i've been the same every since. Well i don't see Terry anymore, his wife came to mw in March banging ln my front foor at 11pm on a wednesday screaming "hes gone hes gone!!" I brought her inside and calmed her down with a cup of tea, and when she could breathe again and stopped sobbing, i asked where Terry had gone. She told me everything. Ever since that day he attacked the Monopoly machine at The Brown Cow, he has been going out every night, and attacking all the pub quiz machines he is aware of. Within a week there wasn't a single quiz machine within a 15 mile radius, and it grew every day. People got desperate, my neighbours smashed through my kitchen windows cover in blood screaming at me, "ASK ME A FECKIN QUESTION IM DESPERATE!!"
Its been 4 hours now since i locked myself in my bathroom, i can still hear my wife trying to smash her heard through the bathroom door, i've run out of questions to ask her and i don't know how long i can keep her out. 999 have stopped answering... if you read this. God help us
sharpied79@reddit
I'm guessing you haven't been in Wetherspoons in Liscard recently?
BINGGBONGGBINGGBONGG@reddit
doesn’t count. Liskeard is in the third world.
Flonkerton_Scranton@reddit
Arcades and Casinos suffered significant impact from home and mobile gaming. No need to play them in pubs anymore, as pubs are mostly empty now and easier to put things out on cheaper platforms.
rustler89@reddit
5
grafeisen203@reddit
Google.
chukkysh@reddit
TezCorp Industries ran the quiz machines like mafiosi. Thank goodness the documentary Bad Robots aired in the 2010s and exposed the whole racket. There was no coming back from that.
BillyJoeDubuluw@reddit
Tech has influenced changes in all gambling habits from bingo halls right through to pub bandits.
I also think, more importantly, pubs have to really fight for relevance a lot more than they once had to and they have to put a lot more effort in to courting specific crowds…
Budgets are tight and so unless it’s a specialist pub centred around being a “gaming room” of sorts then will it not just gather dust?
lil-smartie@reddit
Our supplier hated the quiz machine as it went wrong often, was obsolete & getting parts was a pita. I think the rep was supposed to talk us into getting rid but failed!
Glittering_Copy8907@reddit
Lol, what? They're everywhere
SentientWickerBasket@reddit
Smartphones. Everyone's got the answers in their pocket, which tips the scales over to quiz machines being unprofitable.
MunkeeseeMonkeydoo@reddit
Hickstead, Hickstead, Hickstead, Hickstead Duck Soup, 1933
Possible-Priority927@reddit
Think this might be partially regional. I was in Manchester and Doncaster recently and noticed them in a few pubs, but it's been years since I've seen one in London or the South East. Not sure why though. There's been quite a few shifts in gambling regs over the years, so it might have something to do with licencing? Could just be the decline of cash.
AutoModerator@reddit
Please help keep AskUK welcoming!
When repling to submission/post please make genuine efforts to answer the question given. Please no jokes, judgements, etc.
Don't be a dick to each other. If getting heated, just block and move on.
This is a strictly no-politics subreddit!
Please help us by reporting comments that break these rules.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.