Automatic Age
Issue: 1937 May - Page 14
M ay , 1937
AUTOMATIC AGE
14
MR. R E T A IL M ERCH AN T
G U A R D Y O U R P R O F IT S!
By Leo J. Kelly
Sales Manager , Exhibit Supply Company
TN this message we ask you for some
thing that is above price—yet you
can give it freely without a penny of
cost to yourself— the thing we ask,
Mr. Retail Merchant, is your coopera
tion.
Cooperation with a local business
man of your community—your opera
tor of coin machines—the man who
places coin operated amusement de
vices in your establishment without
any cost of any kind to you. This
operator who has been ever eager to
serve you with the best equipment
money could buy— who is ever at your
call day or night— winter or summer
— needs your help.
By helping him you help yourself
most. Unless you do help him—un
less you lend him your political and
moral support, you are in grave dan
ger of losing the most profitable
department in your place of business,
namely your amusement department.
If you have not considered your
amusement department seriously, let’s
stop just a minute and think over
these facts. The average pin ball ma
chine occupies less than six square
feet of your floor space. If this pin
ball game earns you $10.00 per week
it means that much space makes you
a profit of $520.00 per year. Inasmuch
as this profit of $520.00 per year is
made from only six square feet, it
follows that each square foot of floor
space occupied by this game earns
you $86.70 per year.
Now then, suppose your store is 20
feet wide and 50 feet long or a total
of 1,000 square feet. If each square
foot of floor space in your store paid
you as well as your pin ball machine
as above outlined, you could make
1,000 times $86.70 or $86,700.00 per
year. And if you cut this figure in
half to allow for aisles you would still
have to make $43,350.00 to equal the
per foot profit you derive from your
pin ball machine that nets you $10.00
per week and only occupies 6 square
feet of floor space.
Leo J . Kelly
Your amusement department is the
most profitable department in your
store. It requires very little of your
time and in most instances the floor
space used is space that heretofore
has gone to waste.
If you lose your amusement depart
ment, you lose tremendously. If you
rent your store you would certainly
become alarmed if your landlord in
creased your rent $520.00 per year.
Well, if the coin machine now in your
store is removed, you lose a source
of profit that cannot be replaced. The
income you have derived from coin
machines has done much toward re
ducing your overhead. This income
has certainly lessened your cost of
doing business.
You certainly won’t sell enough ad
ditional merchandise to make up for
the loss. The burden of local and
national taxes will not be diminished
— your cost of doing business will be
just as high . . . nothing you do can
overcome this loss— you are the loser
—fully and completely because the
profit from coin machines is brand
new profit— profit you cannot obtain
in any other way.
© International Arcade Museum
But why should you be the loser?
Why should the minor politician,
whom your votes and votes of your
friends put into office, be swayed by
a minority group to the extent that
he will, through ill-advised legislation
deprive you of just profit?
There is no question that the ma
jority of the people of your com
munity and of the nation want pin
ball games and other amusement de
vices. Yet, you and the majority suf
fer because of an active minority.
We have in the past given scant at
tention to the few who objected to
amusement devices and as a result of
our unpreparedness, we have seen
politicians follow the dictates of the
few and pass ordinances that pro
hibited the use of amusement devices
of all kinds. Minority rule is not a
new evil— time after time we have
seen the active few force their dic
tates upon the passive majority.
This active minority would now
deprive you of ever profiting from
coin operated amusement devices.
They say gambling must be sup
pressed and then in radical fanaticism
shout, “ Down with everything that is
operated by coin.” To them everything
with a coin slide on it is a slot ma
chine— and regardless of intent or
purpose of use of the equipment, they
proclaim loudly, “It ’s a gambling de
vice.”
Let’s look at the law. Black’s Law
dictionary, page 534 says this: “A
game of skill, although the element
of chance cannot be entirely elim
inated, is one in which success de
pends principally upon the superior
knowledge, attention, experience and
skill of the player, whereby the ele
ments of luck or chance in the game
are overcome, improved or turned to
his advantage.”
We do not know a single marble
table manufactured today that does
not require the player to exercise “at
tention, experience and skill.” All
marble machines of late manufacture
permit the “superior knowledge” of
http://www.arcade-museum.com/
AUTOMATIC AGE
14
MR. R E T A IL M ERCH AN T
G U A R D Y O U R P R O F IT S!
By Leo J. Kelly
Sales Manager , Exhibit Supply Company
TN this message we ask you for some
thing that is above price—yet you
can give it freely without a penny of
cost to yourself— the thing we ask,
Mr. Retail Merchant, is your coopera
tion.
Cooperation with a local business
man of your community—your opera
tor of coin machines—the man who
places coin operated amusement de
vices in your establishment without
any cost of any kind to you. This
operator who has been ever eager to
serve you with the best equipment
money could buy— who is ever at your
call day or night— winter or summer
— needs your help.
By helping him you help yourself
most. Unless you do help him—un
less you lend him your political and
moral support, you are in grave dan
ger of losing the most profitable
department in your place of business,
namely your amusement department.
If you have not considered your
amusement department seriously, let’s
stop just a minute and think over
these facts. The average pin ball ma
chine occupies less than six square
feet of your floor space. If this pin
ball game earns you $10.00 per week
it means that much space makes you
a profit of $520.00 per year. Inasmuch
as this profit of $520.00 per year is
made from only six square feet, it
follows that each square foot of floor
space occupied by this game earns
you $86.70 per year.
Now then, suppose your store is 20
feet wide and 50 feet long or a total
of 1,000 square feet. If each square
foot of floor space in your store paid
you as well as your pin ball machine
as above outlined, you could make
1,000 times $86.70 or $86,700.00 per
year. And if you cut this figure in
half to allow for aisles you would still
have to make $43,350.00 to equal the
per foot profit you derive from your
pin ball machine that nets you $10.00
per week and only occupies 6 square
feet of floor space.
Leo J . Kelly
Your amusement department is the
most profitable department in your
store. It requires very little of your
time and in most instances the floor
space used is space that heretofore
has gone to waste.
If you lose your amusement depart
ment, you lose tremendously. If you
rent your store you would certainly
become alarmed if your landlord in
creased your rent $520.00 per year.
Well, if the coin machine now in your
store is removed, you lose a source
of profit that cannot be replaced. The
income you have derived from coin
machines has done much toward re
ducing your overhead. This income
has certainly lessened your cost of
doing business.
You certainly won’t sell enough ad
ditional merchandise to make up for
the loss. The burden of local and
national taxes will not be diminished
— your cost of doing business will be
just as high . . . nothing you do can
overcome this loss— you are the loser
—fully and completely because the
profit from coin machines is brand
new profit— profit you cannot obtain
in any other way.
© International Arcade Museum
But why should you be the loser?
Why should the minor politician,
whom your votes and votes of your
friends put into office, be swayed by
a minority group to the extent that
he will, through ill-advised legislation
deprive you of just profit?
There is no question that the ma
jority of the people of your com
munity and of the nation want pin
ball games and other amusement de
vices. Yet, you and the majority suf
fer because of an active minority.
We have in the past given scant at
tention to the few who objected to
amusement devices and as a result of
our unpreparedness, we have seen
politicians follow the dictates of the
few and pass ordinances that pro
hibited the use of amusement devices
of all kinds. Minority rule is not a
new evil— time after time we have
seen the active few force their dic
tates upon the passive majority.
This active minority would now
deprive you of ever profiting from
coin operated amusement devices.
They say gambling must be sup
pressed and then in radical fanaticism
shout, “ Down with everything that is
operated by coin.” To them everything
with a coin slide on it is a slot ma
chine— and regardless of intent or
purpose of use of the equipment, they
proclaim loudly, “It ’s a gambling de
vice.”
Let’s look at the law. Black’s Law
dictionary, page 534 says this: “A
game of skill, although the element
of chance cannot be entirely elim
inated, is one in which success de
pends principally upon the superior
knowledge, attention, experience and
skill of the player, whereby the ele
ments of luck or chance in the game
are overcome, improved or turned to
his advantage.”
We do not know a single marble
table manufactured today that does
not require the player to exercise “at
tention, experience and skill.” All
marble machines of late manufacture
permit the “superior knowledge” of
http://www.arcade-museum.com/
Future scanning projects are planned by the International Arcade Museum Library (IAML).