Coin Slot

Coin Slot Magazine - #089 - 1982 - July[International Arcade Museum]
By Stephen P. Alpertl
AMUSEMENT
ARCADES
Amusement arcades originally presented a wide
array of machines to amuse the customers or test their
abilities or skill. Some arcades may have had payout
gambling machines, but usually only non-gambling
arcade machines were present By the 1930s, most
amusement arcades began giving out bonus tickets or
tokens to the players. These could be redeemed for
cheap merchandise or saved up in large numbers for
better prizes. Probably the Depression of the 1930s
prompted the arcades to adopt this incentive to bring
in customers and keep them playing the machines, to
try to win the tempting prizes.
Some arcades issued prize tokens, but most of them
used paper tickets. The tokens or tickets generally
were in denominations of points and coupons. Gener
ally, 10 points equalled one coupon, but in some
arcades it was the other way around, with 10 coupons
equal to one point. The prizes varied from the cheapest
of small paper, or plastic toys, or piece of gum for a point
or two, up to sets of luggage or dishware for hundreds
or thousands of coupons.
My first hand experience with amusement arcade
coupons comes from the arcades I visited as a young
ster in Coney Island and Brighton Beach in Brooklyn,
New York, in the 1950s. Most of the arcades used
paper coupons to pay off players with high scores on
various games or machines. In most arcades in Coney
Island, the coupons were awarded to skee ball, poker
roll, or Fascination players only. But the single arcade
on the Boardwalk at Brighton Beach was unusual in
that you could win points or coupons from nearly every
machine in the place. This was my favorite arcade, and
the one closest to where I lived. The kids on my block
would frequently make the three mile hike to the
arcade, in order to save the 15$ trolley fare each way,
where, for a dollar or so, you could play for a couple of
hours (all of the games were 5$ a play) and save up the
points and coupons for a prize.
The Brighton Beach arcade posted a cardboard
chart at each machine stating the machine score-point
payoff schedule. An attendant gave the tickets to
winning players. All the target machines, baseball, and
other sport pinball games, etc., could be played to
amass coupons. But the main games, which dominated
the arcade and were the most popular way of accumu
lating coupons, were skee ball and poker roll.
Skee ball is a skill game where the player rolls balls
down an alley toward scoring hoops. Usually, numerous
alleys are placed side by side. Skee ball is still found in
present day arcades, where tickets are automatically
dispensed by the machine at the conclusion of the
game. The player inserts a coin into the slot, pulls the
lever, and nine heavy, hard plastic balls roll forward.
One ball at a time is rolled up the alley. The ramp curves
upward at the end to project the ball toward the scoring
hoops (valued from 10 to 50). The running score is
registered at the top of the machine in the back. The
total score, after nine rolls, determines the ticket
payoff. With practice, a player can become very skillful
and consistently roll high scores. Many paper coupons
and metal tokens have been issued for skee ball, or
skill ball as it is sometimes called.
Poker roll was my favorite game. Many poker roll
machines were adjacent as in skee ball, but the players
sat on bar stools. The game consists of raffing five
rubber balls down a ramp toward a matrix of closely
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I POINT
40 — THE COIN SLOT
© The International Arcade Museum
July, 1982
http://www.arcade-museum.com/