someone posted a project machine of a 1949 Bally Hot-Rods... for $2500 USD. I don't know what some people are smoking but this was in the same group where someone tried to post a Super Mario Mushroom World for $6000, then lowered it to $4800... I guess some people hope to find a sucker more than they want the space.
Here's the entry at IPDB: https://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=1246
Has anyone played Hot-Rods before? It's a variant of the old "all 5 balls roll down at once" horse race trade stims, but with contemporary-to-the-time replay gambling logic thrown on top.
You select a horse (1-7) with the front knob, insert a coin. 5 balls are loaded in the shooter lane and you send them all out at once.
Winner slots at the bottom are numbered 1-7, plus a left and right "Blow Out" drains (which you can see someone has taken out of service in one of the playfield photos)
Get one ball in your bet hole, it's 3 credits. Get more balls in? 5, 8, 20, 40 credits awarded. (good luck...)
You can actually play up to 7 horses, one coin per horse, but why?
Let's look at the math...
Assuming we play one horse, assuming the drains are in play, each ball has a 1 in 9 chance of landing in our winning horse hole (0.111 repeated)
The odds of NOT winning? 8 in 9. 8/9 = 0.88888 repeated
The odds of 5 outs? (8/9)^5 = 0.5549
Therefore the odds at least one WIN? = 1 - 0.5549 = 0.445
I'm not even going to look at the odds of the higher payouts for multiple balls in the winning slot, let's look at the expected values:
5 outs: 1 coin bet, 0 coins won, net of -1
Expected net value: -1 * 0.55493 = -0.55493
not 5 outs: 1 coin bet, 3 coins won, net of 2
Expected net value: 2 * 0.4451 = 0.890
The sum expected value of a single try? -0.55493 + 0.890 = 0.335
So just playing with one bet, you are expecting an overall net gain per try.
If you were to remove the outlanes and the odds for a win become 1/7, the net expected value jumps to 0.612!
This MUST have been a poorly received machine because it's not set to make the operator any money!
If you reduced it to only 3 balls played, THEN the operator would start having profit.
Fort Worth, TX
Basingstoke
