Two from Goldings
By Robert Rowland
Just recently, I acquired two 1960s electro-mechanical wall machines, which are both
very similar in design and also in game play. One is called Jugola and the other is
called Rouletto, and they were both made by Goldings Automatics of Colchester,
Essex. A fair number of our local arcades here in Mablethorpe had one of these two
machines back in the 1960s.
Starting with Jugola, the front of the machine shows a circus clown juggling
twelve balls, all numbered 3, 6 or 9. These balls are imprinted onto a large round disk
that constantly revolves in a clockwise direction. A small lamp shines through the disk
and illuminates each of the numbers as the disk revolves. When a coin is inserted at
the top of the machine, it drops down onto a steel pin before entering the lit area and
the disk stops revolving. If the disk is stopped dead centre on a numbered ball, the
machine pays out the amount shown, 3d, 6d, or 9d.
The sequence of numbers is 3, 6, 9, 3, 6, 9, 3, 6, 9, 3, 6, 9, with lose positions
between each number. Despite the disk having twelve winning numbers, only six of
these can come up; there are four winning positions for 3d but only one each for 6d
and 9d. In addition, there are a total of twenty-four losing positions where the disk can
stop between the numbered balls, so overall there are thirty-six possible outcomes,
with only six being winners. Jugola is a game that at first sight appears easy to win,
but the odds are certainly stacked against you. The Rouletto machine operates on
exactly the same principle, and both games are very addictive.
On many occasions, when the disk stops it appears to just slide off a winning
number and onto the lose area. Upon looking inside both machines, all is revealed!
Each of the thirty-six positions on the disk corresponds to a steel tooth on a drum that
rotates with the disk. On the numbers that don't pay out, there is no corresponding
tooth on the drum, so when the drum stops in these positions it just slides onto the
next space, which is a 'lose'. This is not an operator adjustment from some time in the
machine's past; it's the way the machines were made.
Rouletto has a thirty-six position roulette wheel, constantly turning in a clockwise
direction. The wheel has twenty-four noughts, four 2s, four 4s and four 6s, but like
Jugola, only half of these winning positions can come up. To stop on a winning
number on either machine will need a lot of luck. Despite what I now know, both
machines are still a lot of fun to play. On very odd occasions you can defy the odds
and come out on top, but it all makes sense now - why, back in the 1960s I never had
much success on this type of machine.
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