I am not an operator so take what I say with a grain of salt.

How many pins would you have set up? If it is one pin with a play as much as you want, then you will only be able to sell the play all you want package to one person at a time. Everybody else is going to move on. Not saying that is good; Not saying it is bad. But it could be a problem.

What happens if you only have one pin, someone pays for and all you want session, plays for awhile, and then the pin breaks down. Do you give a refund?

Part of success is game rotation. You should also fully expect abuse to occur. Not knowing the size of the place, for arcades go classic ... like a 60-1. For pins look at the clientele and the expected age bracket. Kids have to be able to identify with ... like Simpsons or Family Guy. Maybe a racecar theme as little boys identify with cars. For the adults... drop in a couple fairly recent Stern titles. I have an OP friend that said black knight is not doing well. My .02

This is the exact number of pins that I would recommend starting with if you want to have even a glimmer of hope of breaking even the first year or eking out a small profit.

The date you start your business is important. Some cities pro-rate taxes by quarter and not by day. For this reason, I started my business on April 1. It's appropriate in my case since some will say that my business is an April Fool's joke.

If you are in it just for money, it is probably a good idea to nix the idea now in the bud. If you are in the pinball operator business as a labour of love, even a little bit, then you can be successful.

I have just started my pinball operator business. You might find a lot of your questions answered here:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/a-pecos-diary-my-journey-to-pinball-operator

Best wishes whatever you decide. We need more operators so the young uns can learn about the fun we had playing pinball and so that some of the Boomers can relive their pinball past.

I was going to open my own location too, but haven’t yet. I put a few games and pins out on location and I have some bad news. Pins don’t earn much- at least for me- We’ve got other machines- drivers and shooters, claw machines that earn 50 times what the pins bring in. It honestly hurt when I’d go collect the money, a pin would make $5 and a claw machine would make hundreds. I guess it’s all about who you’re trying to attract with the business. If kids are involved, they don’t seem to want to play pinball. Maybe have a few pins and have a few other games too. Maybe have a set of linked drivers like crusin, hydro thunder etc. That way you can reach more potential “customers”. As for free play-my buddy runs uptown pinball in Martinsville VA. He changes $10 for all day free play on over a hundred games and 25 pins and laser tag. He’s doing well as there’s not any competition locally for him so he hosts birthday parties and group rates. I wish you success in whatever you wind up doing. I would definitely start small and put a few pins out on location as a test and go from there!

Sad, but true. I'd go 1/2 redemption and 1/2 pins, then use the money from the redemption to buy new pins with descent themes. Wait until you have some regulars then try out the older stuff.

Good luck.

I think a great start would be to put one pin out on location and go from there! Start out with one and see if there’s interest for more.

One thing I’ve read every time this comes up is insurance...don’t forget you will need that...........Joey

Going to dump a bunch of thoughts on you...

I don't know what kind of business this woman is running, but...if she's not already charging people for day passes to walk through the door, then I don't see how it could possibly work for you to do what with your games. They would need to be on free play. Who is is going to sit there and monitor if people have paid? Are the games going to be cordoned off from everything else in the establishment? Who is going to collect the money? How are you going to identify who has paid and who hasn't?

I think I could give better advice if I knew what kind of business it is.

Many places that you see people pay by the hour/day is because of local laws that require individual annual licenses for each coin operated machine. No coin drop is the way to get around it. The trade-off is that you have to employ someone to manage payments/bracelets/who is coming and going, etc.

What makes you say she wouldn't want coins? You buy a change machine, set it next to the machines, and she doesn't have to do anything. You collect the coins in the machines, put them back into the change machine, take out the cash from the coin machine, and pay her a cut. She won't need to be involved with any part of the payments or collection. Suggest you get 75% and she gets 25% and tell her this is standard for pinball (it is, these days).

This is a much easier arrangement for her than to have you on some sort of maintenance retainer with moving fees. (I'm just a hobby operator, but FWIW I've never heard of such an arrangement). If you're doing a split of the money, both of you have the same incentive: more money in the machines is more money for both of you. You're incentivized to bring easily maintained, well earnings games.

Anything else has the wrong incentives. (If she pays you for maintenance, then you can make money by putting out unreliable games, and do a poor job maintaining them so you need to come more often. If she pays for moving, then she isn't going to want to pay you to bring a different game to replace an already working game, which is free to her).

Before the split with the venue, my games make between $2 a day (low/middle earning game at my worst locations) and $20 a day (for the first month or so of a brand new NIB Stern at my best earning location).

The easiest solution is: buy a change machine, set the games on coin play, and get them in immediately, during high season. See how it goes. That model isn't going to be any extra work for the venue. (People might say the game ate their money, which usually means they couldn't find the start button, but if it actually did, the venue can put tape over that slot and you'll come fix it). Pricing by the hour/day is going to be a lot of work on them, and they might decide pinball isn't worth it because of all that extra work...and you might have trouble talking them into trying out coin drop.

It's not going to make you a lot of money, but it will get more people into pinball, give you some satisfaction for providing that service (and it sounds as though you like fixing games), and lots of excuses to buy new games. If you've got 20 at home now, once you put 10 on location, you'll have 10 more spots at home to fill! Then you have more to rotate.

I did this with a friend for a few years. It was fun but at times work.
Things to consider; liability insurance. If the business is not willing to cover your
machines under their policy, walk away. All it takes is some dumb ass kid to
put his head through the glass and you get sued. Do you do your own repairs,
including board work? If not, don't put games on location. Are you planning to
put nice, expensive games on location? If so expect them to get vandalized
and trashed.

Not trying to be mean. Just passing on things we learned.
Steve

I know lots of operators who do not have this. Of course, that's not a recommendation/suggestion. Everyone has a different risk tolerance.

This, I imagine, would be very much location dependent. In five years, I've never had a machine vandalized (other than maybe a sticker showing up somewhere on the cabinet)...not even at my main venue which turns from a barcade into a nightclub with 1000 drunk people coming through on a busy Friday/Saturday night. I've never heard a vandalism tale of woe from an operator in Colorado.

But...people keep posting these warnings on Pinside, so it must be happening somewhere. I mean, of course it does happen, but seems like the odds are very low.

That might be something worth trying to figure out with the owner. One reason that places use/used tokens was for parties: then you can charge the money to the parents, give the kids a cup of tokens, and they have to put them in the machines (ie: they can't really pocket them and leave the venue, like they could with quarters).

So for parties, people will come and hang out for a few hours. But aside from that, it doesn't sound to me like a per hour/day model would be good. People are just there to eat and might play a few games. I think you need several dozen games or more for people to see value in per hour/day.

See what she thinks about that. The easiest version is to just make it pay to play for parties. The easy version is to charge the hosts and hand out little cups of quarters, and then see if this works out pretty well. Next easiest version might be for you to give the venue a key, and show them how to add credits for a party (and then you charge the venue for the credits added). Though, in my experience, usually the venue doesn't get to have a set of keys, because you might not want them messing around with your games, and/or you can't really secure the money. If all of the employees have access, it's not going to be clear what happened if the cashboxes are unexpectedly empty.

All of this is probably dependent on how often they have parties. If it's constantly, then it's worth working something out. If it's once a week or something, it might not be worth the trouble of accommodating them.

First requirement of anyone wanting to be an operator is to spell delusions correctly.

The pinball locations in my area seem to cater to adults more so than kids. Kids are intimidated by pinball machines and are often actually discouraged by parents who don’t want to see their $1 disappear in 30 seconds. Think more of a barcade type location with drinks, food, places that pinheads are likely to go. In my area even these types of pinball locations only survive thanks to local pinheads and especially tournament or league play. Pinball is a niche - I would think you really need to figure how you will tap into this niche in your area

Touché

I put mine under the main venues liability insurance, you just need to be written on. I also got separate insurance for fire, figured out of everything a fire would be the most devastating. Flood would be smart as well at least here where I live, but thats a seperate insurance policy all together covered through FEMA.

Same other then stickers, people on occasion vandalize restrooms, and very seldomly the pool table area. I've talked to some of the regulars and they are very protective of their spot. They actually get after people if they are to rough with the machines or put drinks on them. There are still spills and machines get a normal beating, but I've never had someone do something on purpose in the 4 years I've had pins on location... at least that I know of. I'm very appreciative of those people, because its not easy doing this to begin with. If it were a thing, I would of stopped long ago.

If your machines aren't broken or aren't stealing peoples money, you have even less of a chance of getting vandalized. If your location is manned, and people see you actually care about your stuff, then I wouldn't worry about it.

The latest issue of RePlay (you should be subscribing, if you're an operator) has a long article listing all the makers of swipe-card systems and associated software. Read that for more ideas about pricing and access control. I think that many of the swipe-card systems support timed access.
.................David Marston

Great point. You could also do parties with PayRage or something similar (it’s an app and a $80 Bluetooth device that you wire into the machine). Then you could remotely set the app to give away credits for free to people using the app during a certain window of time. It would require someone to use the app, but for a party, one person could do it and load up all the machines with credits.

The only thing with a card system is the upfront cost is.... costly. Think I was quoted a little over 30k, and then its like 10 bucks a month for each device up to 30 devices. Anything over that it's free maxing the "subscription" fee at $3600 a year. (there might be other card systems out there, I only got a quote from one). My quote covered 2 kiosks (which you have to have), 40 card swipe thingies, software, shipping, etc...
I was informed that they have a cheaper system, but you have to have under 30 card swipe thingies.

Payrange - the initial startup cost is a lot lower, you pay roughly 4% of every penny earned through the device and .50 cents per machine per week. (things might of gone up since they last wanted me to sign a new contract). The happy hour pricing isn't the easiest to set up if your doing it on random days each month. They were $70 or 80, but I'm pretty sure they went up to $120 or higher per device... I could be wrong though.

While pinball has the ability to make money, I wouldn't use either of these items unless your sure you can cover the overhead first.

The third option is tokens, cheap and easy. You can also give away a bunch at parties. Upfront cost is maybe 500-2k depending on if you get custom tokens. Plus you need either the dual token/coin mechs or just plain token mechs. Other then getting new tokens, you keep all the revenue.

The biggest plus to all three of these is there is no cash. The biggest plus to the first two is there is no collections. The only thing I never understood is access control on pricing. How do you know one member won't lend another his/her card, if they have "gold status".

This is certainly a question that you should ask every swipe card vendor. You could ask a salesperson for a pinball manufacturer what they've heard/seen, too.
.................David Marston

If you enjoy pinball as a hobby keep it that way. It will become a job and suck the fun right out.

Say it's one in a million. What if you are that one ? Kiss everything you have good bye. Might be worst case scenario, is it worth the risk to you ? Get your own insurance.

Start at city hall in the city you want to do this in. Check zoning ordinances. Then check what licenses you need. Could be on your business, you, location, and each game. Some people might say try it without licenses. Check into penalties. Could be huge fines and the city may confiscate your equipment.

And if you enjoy the hobby. Be careful so you don't burn out by going in another direction. The costs and demands on your time can really effect you and your family.

Best wishes. Do your homework. So you have the best chance at success.

LTG : )

My advice would be stop right there. You don't have time for another job.

LTG : )

some rules i use.

never put a game you love or is rare on parts on location
never in a smoking environment
be prepared for stupidness from everyone.
teach the employees there how to fixed stupid things like jammed mechs and lost balls
if there is a problem have the employees send you photos as they are not likely to explain the problem correctly. (game just went crazy - the game was doing a ball search)

Yes. But if it is a hobby in your home and the pin needs work you can give it the middle finger salute for a few days. On location? You are taking up space and the shop wants your pin generating action.

Try to get 100 percent of the coin drop. If they already make their money from food drinks ice cream whatever, your machines are keeping them there or bringing them there. Its an added bonus for people to go. When you have multi thousand dollar machines that require constant pm and regular maintenance, the split days, esp 50/50 are gone. Even 70/30 not cutting it these days unless cheaper 400 to 800 dollar games. The operators who do cheap splits have junky equipment and arent on top of things for the most part. If your games are set up correct, kept very clean, nice pricey examples...go for the top.

I just got done selling the last 13 machines I had on location and its a big relief. Like silver_spinner said you can't make it doing 50/50 split. And there will always be something wrong. The machines you have that you think are solid will break down. The only one I have left is my addams at a bar that I get 100% and brings about $100 a week. It will stay out till it pays for its own restoration.

Kids on freeplay doesn't work with pinballs unless you have a fulltime flipper repairman. Small business insurance offers off-site personal property insurance very cheaply. (Full small business package around $500 per year).

Is that liability also? That's the one that really matters here.

there is a place about 45 minutes from me with maybe 7 pins. one is a WOZ, I have no idea how they keep that thing running... or if it's even running. Mine broke down weekly at pay-per-play, granted it was mainly the light boards but it still brought the game down since most of the lights went out.

Freeplay is great for casuals, but I'd kiss any free time you thought you had good bye. Takes a lot more traffic and parties to offset the cost of techs and parts you'd need to buy for it to work.

Hourly / day pass to play really sucks IMO for a few reasons. If the location has good traffic the coin drop will be better. But I agree that operating can suck the fun out of the hobby if you are not careful.

Happen to have my policy at hand.

Liability:
General 2M
Products and Completed Operations (Quality of work, basically) 1M
Each Occurence 1M
Tenants Liability 100k
Medical 5k per person

Remember this is the cheapest SB insurance on Farmer's in MT for about $500 a year.

I would not route any game I care about. Too many vandals/thugs/dumbasses in the world now. People are stupid.