What's that sound? It's 4 Amusement Only, the EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. Welcome back to 4 Amusement Only. This is Nicholas Baldridge. My guest this evening is Mr. Bingo, Jeffrey Lawton. I've interviewed Jeffrey before in an earlier episode And he is well known as a master repairman. He is also the author of two different bingo pinball books. The only bingo pinball books in fact that I know of. They're both excellent reads. Bally Bingo Pinball Machines is the first and it Details every game that Valley made. And then the bingo pinball war Valley vs. United. Now this details each of the games that both Valley and United made during the years that they competed fiercely for the bingo business. Both of these books are excellent, have a large number of photographs, Copies of flyers, information, historical trivia, they're just wealths of knowledge. Jeffrey is also a big supporter of the York Show. He's there every year and it's been my great pleasure to see him there each year With games, these fascinating machines which up until fairly recently I didn't know existed. So without further ado, let's go to the interview. Hi, Jeffrey, how are you? I'm fine, Nick. Good to talk to you again. Nice to talk to you. How have things been going? All in all, things have been going real well. I'm back to doing a little bit of work again. My back is not going to be an issue. I still can't bring any games to York, but I figure next year everything will be back to normal as it should be. Excellent. But you'll be at York this year, correct? Absolutely. Absolutely. And I've got a case of books for you that we will autograph so the uh... jeffrey i want to talk today and uh... not only kind of reintroduce you to uh... the slick listening public here also uh... to to see if i could get some stories and recollections on uh... your time working for an operator uh... on a thing of sand uh... kind of your memories uh... and Interest in the York show specifically. All right. Let me digress for a second. As you may or may not know, the Game Room magazine is being published again. And I did receive a copy and I did read through it and I enjoyed what I saw. The concern for me as an older pinballer is that everything that they're describing in the magazine is frankly modern and that gonna ask you about that if you were still uh... on the docket to contribute or anything event it's it's it's disheartening to me because uh... i wrote to the editor and i told them that i was a provider of articles to both tim franti and kevin steele and in the magazine They show a picture of one of the mag one of the original magazine covers it shows a picture of a bowling machine and on the picture of that bowling machine just to the right of it says it says Lawton's crazed bowler hijinks and that issue was my debut article for gamer magazine and uh... it talked about a jumbo bowler and i mention that only because I wrote to the editors and I said I'm sure that Kevin Steele has in his archives uh... some information about my articles and if you want to go through them and use any of them you're more than welcome to do that I seriously doubt that they will only because it just seems like more and more people aren't really interested in the non digital Repair work that goes into pinballs like our bingo games. So I kinda hope that they use some of the stuff that I have there. I know Kevin had probably seven or eight articles that I had sent to him in hopes of being published and unfortunately he let the magazine go before that was able to happen. But who knows, maybe some of the older material would come out again. I would like to see I would like to see personally some of my own material published. I would like to see some information by Bob Herbison who's a very serious collector of flipper games in the Texas area. And I always enjoyed Bruce's stories in Pin Game Journal that Jim Shelburne used to publish. Bruce Moyer. Right. And of course Bruce Moyers is a legacy member of the York Show. He goes every year just as I go every year. Mm-hmm. And he is a similar wealth of knowledge. Yes. Yes. You guys are both really fun to talk to and especially when you're together. So that's one of the many things that attracts me to York is not just the fact that you're so committed I'm glad that you bring bingos every year, but also that I get to meet and interact and play games from all these people that I've read their names in print for a long time or heard discussed in collector circles, but it's great to be able to talk with you in person. Well, I only have experience with two shows, personal experience, and that's, of course, the York show. Now, excuse me, three shows, my error. I have experience with the York Show, the Allentown Show which is a very big show, and the Pinball Expo that Rob Burke and Mike Pasek run in Chicago. And all three shows are excellent for pinball, but York has something that the other two don't have and that is that York has a much, much larger diversity of games. John Papadiuk, Black Water, person's name or role at Stern Pinballelectronic panel in backbox that is backlit during playelectronic I'm thrilled even though I can't bring a game personally, I'm thrilled that there will be so many others bringing games and it seems like all the effort and all the work that everybody who loves bingos has done to get the York show to get really taking off as far as having more than one bingo provider, it's finally paid off. I'm glad of that. I'm really excited for this year. So we will see. And next year, you know, we'll see if we can keep it going, but eyes are on this year so far. Yes. So how did you get involved with York? What was your first time going and how did that get you drawn there? When I published my book in 1999, Jim Shelberg, who was the author and publisher of Pin Game Journal, invited me to attend and to occupy his booth and sell my books out of his booth rather than me having to go to the expense of having my own booth, which I really appreciated. And the the that pinball expo that 1999 pinball expo expo was a great success for me. It was especially humorous because I didn't bring enough books because I didn't expect it to be as big a success as it was. And when they had their they had their authors table, they still do that. In pinball expo every year where anybody who's there who's an author, They sit down and people can get autographs. And I went to Steve Young, who was a pinball resource, who had a booth at Pinball Expo at that time. And I asked him if he had brought any of my books and he said, yes, he had a case. I said, well, give me the case and let me take it with me, because this way, if people come up and they want to, they want my autograph and they don't have a book, I'll sell one of your books to them, autograph it and it'll work out. I was able to sell all of Steve Young's books at that autograph signing. He was thrilled to death, obviously. Who wouldn't? He said to me the same thing that I thought, and I was wrong. He said, I thought I would bring these books and they would just sit here and nobody would buy them. He said, I can't believe that you sold the whole case. And we actually sold, I sold my case, I sold his case, and I think Shelberg had brought some copies along and I sold his too. So I sold a fairly good number that day at Pinball Expo. Now, fast forward and I get a call from a fella named Bill Dahl. He was a pinball hobbyist who supported bingoes and he was very active in the York show. John Papadiuk, Black Water, person's name or role at Stern Pinballelectronic, Okay. And so have you always brought two games to the show? No, sometimes I brought three. Wow. There were two years that I actually brought three games and that got to be too much of an effort. I try to bring two every year. Unfortunately, this year since I hurt my back, I'm not bringing any. But hopefully next year, I did get a clean bill of health on my back so next year I should be able to get back to where I can start bringing two games again. I really enjoy bringing a couple of games because people actually over the years, people look forward to seeing what it is that I'm going to bring because I never usually bring the same game twice. Now unfortunately my stock of games is dwindling but I'm hoping that as I bring repeat games it'll be so many, enough years different that people won't remember or they won't remember enough that they won't mind seeing the same game over again. There we go. And hopefully, you know, we can coordinate because I don't plan on not bringing a bingo after this year. So, yeah, maybe we can work it out so that we don't bring duplicates and all that. Yes. And I think what I want to do, what I think I want to do is in future years is maybe bring some games out of my collection that I don't plan on selling but that people can enjoy. I was just going to say, I'll give you a little hint there. This is actually a story from a game called Circus Queen. I just wanted to make sure that I was keeping it real. This is an interesting story because I wrote about it in my book, but I'll highlight it. A gentleman wanted to have it repaired and it was on the back of his truck and when I saw it, I made him a cash offer for the game on the spot. I said, I don't care if it works or not. It was amazingly clean and he said he didn't want to do that. I loaded in my garage and I was going to start working on it. Before I could start working on it, the phone rings and it's this man and he said he's had second thoughts and he wants to sell the game. And he wanted to know what I would offer him for it. And I said, well, what did I tell you I would give you before? And he told me and I said, okay, that's what I'll still give you. He says, oh, I really appreciate that. He says, I thought you might offer me less. I thought, well, why would I offer you less if the game is worth what I thought it was? Johnny Pneumonic, Black Water, person's name or role at Stern Pinball, Franchi),as in the comment section of this video. The original finish on the playfield. Really? Because it had literally had almost no use. It had been purchased by a Eagles Club in Paris, Kentucky, and they had it on the floor for a period of time until Bobby Kennedy invoked the Johnson Act on bingo games. And everybody that had bingo games, especially owners like that, that were like owner operators John Papadiuk, Black Water, person's name or role at Stern PinballBryartwork panel in backbox that is backlit I got a fairly a fair amount of nice bingos to my collection but nothing like this And I did have a man offer me offer me five times what I paid for it and I explained to him and this was the term I used in the book I said money comes and goes but I said a game like this comes once in a lifetime and I said that why I not selling it And I still have that game in my collection today Knapp Arcade Tie, Piegni Schneider, I have a gentleman that come over back Wednesday night. We play every Wednesday night. We get together and we play bingo. We drink beer and we eat pizza and popcorn and we listen to old do-up songs on the radio and we're 17, 18 years old all over again. It's very nice. That's cool. Makes me want to move up to your area. Or I need to spend more time with Steve. It's one or the other. Yeah. So, yeah, what did you end up bringing last year? You brought roller derby. I brought roller derby and I brought Sun Valley. Sun Valley, yes. And Sun Valley that I brought, if you remember, had a broken backglass on it. Yes. And people played that game and as they played it, after three or four games, they never I was able to find a backglass. I don't know if anybody else on the podcast is aware of this or not but in st louis uh... a long time bingo hobbyist enthusiast uh... uh... well-known uh... uh... aficionado in the hobby a fellow named Dennis Dodal is working with a man and they're selling off uh... an operator's entire warehouse of bingo games and bingo parts and back glasses and i bought to sun valley backlash from him for the sun valley i had at the show and for my own personal some valley and i have a customer from louisville who had to see island and he went to saint louis and bought a few island backlash for his game and i have another customer friend here in loveland ohio which is near cincinnati and he drove out to saint louis and bought ten games and truckball back so uh... i know dennis and uh... the fellow he's working with is a fellow named bingo bob in saint louis and uh... they're uh... they're they're advertising a small number of games on ebay to see how they're going but they're selling games that are that are reasonably priced uh... the term they used is that they are well operated and that's true they've got uh... uh... they've got I'm reinforced corners, reinforced metal corners on all the games. Most of them are still the original paint on the body and most of them have really nice back glass but even if the back glass on a particular game is shaky, they have a huge cache of back glass available, I mean for purchase. So this is something that's good to know. And if people on podcasts don't know how to reach Dennis or don't know how to reach Bingo Bob, they can either contact you or they can contact me directly and I'll certainly put them in touch with them. The I bought I bought uh... eight of the eighteen Hertz motors that drives the control unit and the mixer unit in the bingo games and um... uh... they were very reasonably priced. I bought one myself for uh... this gate time that I'm bringing. I mean so and they've been to the back which to work with you and um... I'm just great guys. I agree. Yep. They've been nothing but pleasant to deal with and That's that's putting it mildly. They're very very nice. So yeah, I'm also bringing that nightclub and I got the glass from from them as well, but unfortunately it broke in shipment, so it'll it'll have a glued together glass, but It's playable and it beats the heck out of the one that I had in there previously where the operator had cut all of the verbiage off of the glass. Actually scraped it clean, you know. Yeah, yeah. I had an interesting, when I bought the Sun Valley back glass from Dennis, I had a Sun Valley Do you watch TV at the back versch lined up? Joe J One-Tige on the name biblical account Seattle Washington who was again a hometown bingo official after full inspect addicted revelux is sharing being over pureTvD Oh Boutss how to repair your bingoes with very similar to the DVDs that Alan method is selling Both of those DVD groupings are excellent for somebody who not only wants to learn from scratch but also even knows a little bit about bingo repair and wants to increase and enhance their knowledge. They're both good products. And when I realized that Dennis had a Stunt Valley backglass even though it wasn't an original backglass, it was so nice that I said the difference between getting an original one I'm from Seattle, Washington and taking the chance on shipping versus driving to St. Louis and getting the backglass and driving back is a no brainer. So I drove to St. Louis and got the backglass. Wow. Yeah. That's what I should have done. Live and learn. I'm fortunate. I've had backglass come to me over my years and the only time I had trouble, many of the people on the podcast may remember there was a fellow in Kansas City. Realityuellness vs. I'm not even gonna open it up. I'm sending it back to you. He said that I said, I want my money back. He says, well, I don't, I don't want you to give me my, my, your money back. I said, I got another backlist here and I'll give you that one for nothing. I'll send it for nothing. And I will send it to the wooden crate. The only thing I ask is you just send me my wooden crate back, which of course I did. The second one came through fine and I didn't have a problem. Now what I'm leading up to is people have told me horror stories about shipping backglass especially via UPS. And I'm not saying that UPS is a bad shipper, but it seems like they have a disproportionate number of backglasses that get broken in their care. What I did for the longest time when I would have somebody who wanted to buy backlist. I had one of these rapid postal places. Everybody's got them. I would take the backlist to rapid postal. It just does a piece of glass. I'd set it on the counter and I'd say I need this to get to this location. Tell me how much it's gonna cost me to pack it. I want to insure it for this much money and I don't want to know nothing, just I want to make sure it gets there. I never had a backbox broken that way and I think I never had one broken for two reasons. I would always insure the backbox for twice what the customer had paid me for. That way I didn't lose anything and the customer didn't lose anything. Second, if it did get broken in shipment, we had to put an insurance claim in. There was no way RapidPostal could say that I didn't wrap it right because they wrapped it and I paid extra for it. And that worked out very well. Now, most recently, when I set a backlist, I worked with Butch Glott in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. He sent me the backlist that was on the Stump Valley in the show. And he said the same thing. He said, I'm going to send it to you in a wooden crate and I'm going to send it to you in the United States Post Office, United States Postal Service. And I said, that seems strange. It's going to be kind of expensive, isn't it? The they take care of it which is a treated like it was and he's right went up by christian and i had to go to the post office here in mount washington which is a suburb of the time i live in and uh... i went i i gave a slip for it to go yet it's a good i said that's a big great corner we've been kinda it says it's clear that it's part of the kind of keeping that out of the way and i thought you know this is good to know So, people ask me, I've been telling them, if you're going to ship your glass, even if it costs $10 or $12 more to ship it, send it USPS and they'll make sure it gets there and it won't be damaged. Yeah. And there is nothing, of course, that Dennis did incorrectly in shipping this glass. It was in a crate. It was beautifully packed. Yeah. It just happened to break. That happens. Yeah. So, I just wanted to put that out there because there's no knock against Dennis. Raza..]as a fantastic guy. What do you think you might end up bringing next year if the mood strikes you? Do you think that circus queen might make the trip? I think I would like very much to try to bring the circus queen and I think I would Probably bring my surf club. I had brought the surf club once before but a long time ago. And I don't know that many people will remember the surf club. I probably had the surf club there 2000, somewhere between either 2005 to 2007, somewhere in that period. And the surf club is a much older game but it's got some very unique features. It's got what's called hold. Now, anybody who knows the older bingos, well actually even the new, the four machines that I know of that have hold are Ice Frolicks or Ice Capades, I'm going to say Ice Frolicks, Palm Springs, Surf Club and Tahiti, the 20-hole bingo has a hold feature. Right. Those are the four that have hold features to my knowledge. Now, Ice Frolics and Palm Springs have a single hold feature where you can hold odd or hold even one time. Palm Springs allows you to buy extra balls and play the extra balls before you use the hold feature. www.surfclub.com That's one of the most unique hold features I've ever seen on a bingo game. Yeah, that's pretty incredible. And I find when I'm playing that game, once I get the hold feature, I don't need to get anything else. Yeah. Because if I can drop the odd and even numbered Balls, I've usually got a pretty good chance to make a winner. Montage , There are multiple shutter boards? Yes, there are multiple. It's not like there are multiple shutterboards but the shutter has three motors on it and the shutter motor, if you operate the left key, the left shutter motor goes and it slides the board back to the left which holds, which if this is the odd, It will hold all the even numbers in place but all the odd holes are now open and if Recording PC an that that feature it's cool. and if not tonight if the march feature and It's brought it's relatively Mechanically why it's relatively trouble free you know in all the years. I've been working on bingo I never had a serious mechanical problem with a with the whole with the whole shutter mechanism on On either Palm Springs or rum Circuit now. I've never worked on a nice frolic. I don't know I don't know the mechanics of that game, but The Palm Springs on the circle which I am familiar with never had a problem with the shutter mechanism in lieu of with the hold. Very good. Yeah, one of the new in box Tahiti's that is prone to showing up every once in a while showed up on Charleston, South Carolina's Craigslist here recently. I was trying to convince someone to bring that to York I have an unboxing party But yeah that would be neat to play one of those games because I have never played one of the ones that allows you to drop only certain balls So if I get a chance if I able to bring games to show next year which I have every expectation I will I will have the surf club there So you'll get a chance. Excellent. Excellent. So what are your feelings? Just out of curiosity about gay time? Go ahead. Do you like that machine in the Magic Pockets feature? I like the MagicPockets feature. What I have found is that the MagicPockets feature combined with other features like the moving lines, it's very difficult for people to know when they have a winner and when they don't. The Ballet's credit both daytime and gated which of the two games with magic pockets they made a point of making sure that the seven numbers one two seven are displayed in blue on the moving lines right whereas the other numbers are normal I guess black on white and you as a The player have to be savvy enough to know that when you've got balls in the top row that those balls can be positioned numerous places depending on if you have in case of gate time two lines, three lines or four lines lit for movement. So it's awful easy to miss winners if you're not taking your time to see what you've got. The other thing The only thing that's really neat about the MagicPockets feature, and you talked about this on your video, is that you can move the balls, let's say you have a number in 1, you have a number in 2, and you have a number in 5. Okay, if you push the numbers towards the right, now you'll have a number of balls in 2, 3, and 6. I'm going to say for instance that what you really want is you want something in, you really want something in four and six but you don't care where the third ball is. So what you can do is you go back and you go back on the left. Now you go back to one, two and five and you push it on the left one more time. The ball that's in two will try to go into one. One won't move. But there's already a ball in one, so the ball that's in two falls out, is now in play. Leaving two in the magic pockets. So now you've got a ball in one and you've got a ball in four. But what you want is, you want a ball in two and four. So you push it to the left one more time. Now you have a ball in one and three. Then you push it to the right, you put it in two and four, and you've got your winner. Depending on what's in your center line. And it was very difficult for people to understand that. The fact that you could position the balls any way you wanted to. Now if you have the balls, if you have three balls, one, two, three, well you're stuck. There's nothing you can do. Right. Yeah. But if you have any gap, you can decrease the gap until you have all the balls in the top row touching. Right. Uh, but once you've decreased it, you can't increase it again. That's correct. You can't increase it. Yeah. Uh, and I can see how conceptualizing those wins would be difficult. Uh, it is, it requires some thought for sure. Yes. Especially because the, uh, you can only move those balls at one time. Yes. For some reason it gets out of hand after our molar Dü bitte Federal Or I'll waitльow perfekt of some reason answers. Because sometimes, just to hang out properly with the other and enditeavour of the day. It is nothing of the ultimate work when I somewheredCan'tbe side with you To change my face, you now find that my face will totally drop and get appear in your face. While in panic Morale of the night HOWEVER, you only get to keep będą's państwa and learn a little rabbit in her bum and you end up down. Ariche yeaah, just become yourself. Walde alain I was saying ad love on it. It means calling this favorite game especially not really sickening but is in Cardi Sombie the game it again. Thongxouci, manδła shad riit sertäk All thisмуandrosi mileage sa beste is Ö лежä时 déter Wars offense Toe triple rainwater. But there was nothing in the backpack. Tell you that they were spotted. And oftentimes operators would come back and they would see somebody playing and they see six lights on the on the display board, but only five balls. They think the game is broken and the player would have to tell you know. Then at the store on the school card say, No, look, it's supposed to spot the ten and twenty five. That's a feature. And of course the operator goes, well it's not on the backlit as well. Yes it is on the backlit, it's on the number. You're on the scorecard, it says it's supposed to do that. And sometimes the operator would say, well alright, I'll let it go. Other times they would say, no the machine's broken, they shut the machine off. Wow. So the repairman came in and said, no, no, it's actually supposed to work that way. Well I can see why they added that text. The last thing that's neat about, but the third thing is that the daytime offers red and yellow three scores four. That's a nice feature. That feature was expanded on Miami Beach which came right after daytime when they put the curtain on and they added three scores five on the green panel and that feature was fairly popular. The only other feature they had prior to that were games like Beach Club or Palm Springs where they had the little nine-digit card, nine-number card with three scores as four. Right. But they didn't have panels where three scores as four on line moving games or corner moving games up until, well actually Sun Valley had the three scores four in the green panel in place of the valley hole. And then all your magic screen games have the red and yellow super sections with two scores, three, three scores, four, four scores, five, etc. And Acapulco actually increased where they hit at the super line where three scores, four, four scores, five and five scores, super five because they had a fourth row of odds on that. And the last thing I like about daytime, if you look at the very last odds, the very last The average Pinnacle Price of the year is $380. Now, what that means is that if you can get that odds lit, all you've got to do is make four in a row and you get the top score. Which is a nice feature. Three scores, four-panel lit, and you make three in a row when you've got the odds up that high and you're fat like a rat in a cheese trap. Oh yeah. Yep, that would make me very happy. Now, humorously enough, a lot of players would complain. I had seen as a youngster, I had seen people playing daytime and here's a guy, he's got five in a row. He's got 80, 300, 300 and he's complaining to the operator. He says, no, he says, I got five in a row. I'm supposed to get 300 more. And the operator said, no, no, it doesn't say 600. It says 300, 300. He said, you're getting your 300. You don't have to I'm going to make five in a row to get top score. That's what that's saying. Well, and I've had similar problems with Sun Valley. I remember at the show, I had a Sun Valley at the show and this fellow's got four in a row in the green. He's got three in a row in the green. He's got his 480 score. He got top odds and he's going for extra ball. And I said, what are you going for extra ball for? She says, well, if I make four in a row in the green, he says, I'll get 600. I said, well, where does it say that? Tray that That's just like on Gay Time though. Yeah, same thing. Yep. Same as I think. So, well, I guess that brings me to when you worked for an operator long ago, huh? What were some of the standout stories from that time for you? Were you the person that they were complaining to or were you the guy coming in and doing What was your background? Did you work in the behind the scenes work, changing clutches and that kind of stuff? I was a repairman. When I worked for Frankie Mondello, Frankie was the repairman and I was his assistant. So when I would go in and do shop work and whatnot for Frankie, I would go in and he'd John Papadiuk, Black Water, person's name or role at Stern Pinball, Franchi),as in the encouragement or design position unint I said, okay, I understand. And so I would do that. That was, that was the kind of, that was a lot of the kind of work I did for Frankie. Now when Frankie and I would go out on location, I stayed in the background and the operator would tell Frankie what was wrong with the game. And then he would say to me, he'd say, all right, he said, they're telling us that this This game is doing this, this, this and that. Pull the game out, open the back door, check these three or four things. I'm going to go have a cup of coffee and if you can get the game back working fine, if not then come and get me and I'll help you. And that was my work with Franchi. So it gave me a chance to learn a lot of neat stuff. Now when I worked for Pearl Vending, I worked for Pearl Vending when I was going to school. The problem I had with pro vending, I was in training up until I graduated high school and I started college. And after I finished my year of training, then they would allow me to go out on my own service calls. So I remember going to the casino restaurant on Hamilton Avenue in Trenton, New Jersey. And they had a Golden Gate in there. The Golden Gate had, the screen had jumped the track. So it wouldn't turn. Well, there was a particular man in pearl vending who was the bingo guru. So I walk in, I walk in and I'm here for pearl vending. I'm here to look at your machine. He says, where's Andy? The fellow's name was Andy. He says, where's Andy? I said, well, he's not here. He says, I'm covering this. I'm gonna look at your game. No, no. He says, I want Andy here. So I said, all right, look. I said, let me go call the office. I'm going to go to the office, see if we can get a hold of Andy because I don't know where he is, he's not in the office, and he'll talk to you but in the meantime can I at least pull it out and take a look at it? You say fine, you can do that. So I pull it out and take a look at it. Well it was an easy problem. The spring had come off the, on the magic screen unit there's a chain and on the chain there's what I call a star gear and that star gear is a tension gear and the spring had broken on the star gear and the star gear was floating free and the chain was not allowing the screen to move. So I basically took the spring, I cut, I cut enough off, I made a new loop and I basically repaired it. Put it back on and the guy came back and I said, see I've got the screen working for you. He said, well what did you do? And I showed him what I did. He said, well I should, okay. He said, that's okay, but I'm not going to be happy until Andy comes and looks at this machine. You know that, that, I think this was on a Saturday, but he said the following Monday, Andy had to go over and look at this machine. And so, yes, Jeff did a good job. Well, reputation is everything, right? I was the guru and it was the same way like I would go in and I would go in and I would shop games and they I remember they had a funny talk about Circus Queen that we had a Circus Queen that was getting ready to go out to Bordentown, New Jersey and so I'm went in the back and I'm cleaning the contact in the units making sure they're working real good. So I'm inspecting the relays. Well, I noticed on mixer number two relay There was a switch that was gapped open so it could never close. So that's not right. So I gapped it back the way it's supposed to work. I had no idea what that switch was. And it came time for me to go deliver the game with another technician and we'd set the game up. And I had to back them up again. And I looked at Mix and Unpredict and that same switch was gapped open again, which means that somebody had gone in behind me to see if I I've done all things I was supposed to do. Right. So this time I left it alone, closed the door, and when I went back, I went to find Andy. And I said, not for nothing, but I finished that Circus Queen. Did you go back in and check my work? He says, oh yeah. He says, I always check everybody's work on bingos because he says, not everybody is as conscientious as you are and not everybody knows as much as I do. So he says, I can check. I said, what's the deal on mixer number two relay? He says, oh, he says you caught that. That switch on mixer number two relay stops the two in the blue from ever operating. Yeah. But that was interesting. But I worked for Pearl Vending for I worked for Frankie Mandello for two years and then I started with AT&T after that and from that time on I didn't really work on any bingos except my own collection. But I was able to learn quite a bit of things about bingo games in that short period of time. I wrote in my book about the time when Frankie wanted me to go to the Trent restaurant and loosen the machines In title among assignment to the Alex said, well, he says, Jeffrey, he says, this is a Thursday. And when these guys come in here before work, what I want them to do is I want them to beat these machines. I want them to win. And they'll go to work and they'll say, Oh, I was in Trent restaurant and I hit this much on this machine. I hit this much on that machine. And he says, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, those games will play. He says, I'll make back anywhere from six to 10 times what I pay out. Wow. I thought to myself, I understand. That's pretty great. That was one of the few locations where they allowed the reflex to run properly. Really They didn have an extra stop bolt or whatever No what they did they didn have a stop so we gonna go so far most places they they had the reflex completely off they had a set that the maximum tighten at it off because they didn't want the people to win but operators who had serious clientele and who really wanted to make money with their machines not only did they allow the free play the reflex to There are also a variety of other features, including a free run feature, the extra odds feature, engaged and working. Now a lot of people say why would they want the extra odds feature working? The answer is real clear. Let's say you're a bingo guy playing for money and you're down let's say it's 1963 and you're down fifteen eighteen dollars and you're thinking about it's time to go home and you start your next game so you get four sixteen seventy five and then you go on your blue button and you get uh... eight twenty four ninety six but the red goes keeps on going and goes to sixteen goes to thirty two goes to sixty four on one push and the guy says whoa sends the boy up to the counter and says go get me another roll of nickels this is getting interesting and they and they would proceed to play now the humor that is and and anybody who knows bingoes knows this to be a fact uh... beyond debt to a certain point it's very difficult to get the features and of course the features light up real quickly it's very difficult to get the odds up up to even i can get about the thirty two ninety six two hundred and any chance to get beyond that almost impossible uh... Real operators, they always had active extra odds units and active free running reflexes. So the machine was working as it was supposed to then. It was working as it was supposed to and the player had an even chance. Right. Because even a good player is going to beat a bingo game about 60% of the time. That's a good player. The what your bread and butter is is the player who comes in drops a dollar machine that's five dollars and says well almost at the next time it comes in he buys five dollars with a nickels and doesn't get anything anybody five more dollars with a nickels and he gets six dollars and if you get your winter you have to realize he spent ten dollars to win six The Winner! That's all about it! There you go. So, in Las Vegas, I don't know if any of your podcast listeners are familiar, but when bingo games were in Las Vegas, they were hopper controlled. Now, many people have hopper bingo games. In Las Vegas, reflex was cammed even. In other words, your non-hopper games, your reflex will step a half a credit back every time it loosens for every credit that it's been tightened. Now, on Vegas, every game, if it tightens one game, you put a nickel in it, loosens one game. It's legit. It's one for one either way. I discovered that I had a roller derby that came out of Reno, Nevada, which I sold to a gentleman in Atlanta years ago. And I discovered I was surprised at that. I looked at that reflex and I said, those gears are the same. And they were. They were the same gears. Are you a member of the gambling Commission? No, I, again, in Las Vegas, you always have to have a good payout and the casino operators in Las Vegas knew that if you wanted people to keep coming back and you wanted people to play, you had to let them win once in a while. Right. And they won. Now, I don't know if the Hopper games in Maryland worked that way, but I remember as a senior in high school, I played Hopper bingo games in Greenwood Dairy in Maryland. It's still splited.ców. I want to say thanks to laffly, Veronica Thiemman, I'll look here closely at the next Hopper game that I work on and see what the reflex Ratio is. But, yeah, I didn't look at that last time I worked on one. Well, most people wouldn't because they don't concern themselves about that. Yeah, either it's working or it's not is really the approach I take. Exactly. Yeah. But, yeah, very interesting. So, what was the most egregious tightening that you did at that operator that you were mentioning? Well, in the case of, in the case, what Frankie would do, depending on where the location was, he had an arcade down on Center Street in Trenton, New Jersey, and he had mostly his own older machines in there. The game was a game of two or three fingers lifted. The game would loosen up but the fingers would never touch it. It wasn't until the back three fingers got to where they were hitting something and very often the reflex through the natural gearing of the unit would stop before it got to the I'm a lucious point. Whoa. And that was the worst thing of the year. Fortunately, he never had me cut wires on the spotting disc or cutWires on the mixtures, but I have seen cases where in games I've serviced where operators had gone in and you can see where they actually on the back of the spotting disc where they would have like Wire loops you could see where the wire loops were actually lifted and on solder. Mm-hmm yeah I believe it luckily I haven't worked on one that said that. Haven't either but uh...yeah. Now the other thing that was a problem and this was not an operator problem but over the years because of cold solder joints um... your mixers tend to go open. A classic example is mixer three. Now, if people know about Mixer3, what Mixer3 does is on a multicolored game, Mixer3 determines which color is going to advance if the spotting just stops on the right circuit. Now, one of the things when I shop a game out, one of the things that I test is I test every position on Mixer3 and I make sure that every position does something. The and I'd hate to tell you how many games I've worked on were out of the twenty four positions on mixer number three as many as six of them will be open. Oh, really? They're open not because any operator did something, but because the wire loops have just simply gone cold and they've come off the back of the rivets. Yeah, I... that is frightening. Well, you know, and it's I'm in a bid because unless you have to reclutch a game, you never take those mixers off. Now a lot of people when they shop games out, they'll pull that apart and they'll reclutch them when they need reclutching. I don't do that. If those clutches are working good and they're turning the mixers, I leave it alone. But what I dread is like I test every Is under the Well, yeah, that's food for thought. I just resolved a mixer problem myself here recently, but it was due to something completely different. The mixer latch wasn't engaging long enough for the mixers to actually rotate, and so I was not getting any kind of consistent operation out of the machine. Yeah. But, uh, figured that out and it was a switch that was making but it was, uh, not a very good switch, it needs to be replaced. Yep. Um, and that'll take care of it permanently but I've got it limping along for now. That's my, uh, my problem child, my double up. Uh, yeah. And that one will be to the show, I'm sure I'll have to adjust, um, that switch a couple of times, make sure it makes. Or maybe I'll bite the bullet and actually buy a switch while I'm there, who knows? I'm bringing my, I was going to drive the car to the show, but I'm bringing my van to the show, so I'll have parts, so I'll have switches for you when we get there. Ooh, alright. Yeah, I might have to make a few purchases actually. So, alright. And Jeffrey, unfortunately I am running out of time, but before we call it a day here, I wanted to let you know this episode is going to air as my 200th episode. Okay. And as part of that, I just wanted to announce a bit about what we're planning for the York Show because I haven't discussed in detail some of the plans here. But as Jeffrey mentioned in the beginning of the show here, he's going to be bringing a case of autographed books and it's going to be a mixture of Bally Bingo Pinball Machines and the uh... bingo pinball war hands what we're going to do is have a little contest and uh... anybody who uh... is able at certain prescribed times to make uh... four or five in a line and would like one of these books uh... you can compete against the machine see if you can do it and you'll win one that's a great idea I think that we'll get some people playing, at least I certainly hope so. Aside from that, of course you'll get to shake my hand and I'm sure you'll be able to shake Jeffrey's hand as well. Jeffrey A. I look forward to seeing the show. I don't know that we have time today, but in future podcasts, one of the things I want The first thing I want to discuss in some detail is problems that Bally inadvertently had caused in their games as they evolved technically through more and more modern games. A classic example is something that you and I worked on with your nightclub where the picture in the book does not match the game. Second is the circuits in the game do not match the schematic. The schematic is not accurate and shot manual is not accurate. And the third is the changing of the magic screen games when they went from a 40 step timer to an 8 step timer and the myriad of problems that that has caused people over the years. The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental and unintentional. Yeah, it's interesting, you know, they're a victim of their own success a little bit there. Yes. But, well, Jeffrey, I wanted to thank you very much for coming on and I wanted to also thank you very much for bringing Bingos every year to York. It's been a great highlight of my trips up there, being able to see and play these games which, you know, previously I had never known existed and being able to see different ones from different eras and play them and try and win has always been a highlight and I really appreciate all the work that you've done to make that happen every year. So thank you. I cannot say it's been a labor of love. This hobby has given me a lifetime of enjoyment And I still enjoy the thrill of the game. I'm a better repairman than I am a player, but that doesn't matter. It's still fun. That's all that counts. Yeah, I'm not a very good repairman or player, but, you know, I'm working on both. You go. All right, Jeffrey. Well, have a great afternoon, and I look forward to seeing you here in just a couple weeks. Thank you, Nick. Thank you, Nick. I look forward to it and I look forward to being on with you again. Alright. Thanks very much. Yes, sir. I want to thank my guest Jeffrey Lawton for coming on the show and telling us a couple stories about his time working for a couple different operators and his special connection to the York Show. Jeffrey again is the author of Bally Bingo Pinball Machines And the Bingo Pinball War, Valley vs. United. As I mentioned, this is part of the Bingo Row at York. Try and get four or five in a line and you can win an autographed copy of one of those books. Well, that's all for tonight. Thank you for joining me on my two hundredth episode. My name again is Nicholas Baldridge. You can reach me at 4amusementonlypodcast Out Interpretation Thank you.