Go to the city hall in the city your store is in. License division. They can best tell you what you all need. Free play or coin play.

Could be license on location, your business, you, each game, etc. etc. They can let you know zoning ordinances too, on where you can or can't put games.

Add them to your insurance too. If someone gets hurt by your machine, you don't want to be without.

I wouldn't try any short cuts like no insurance on games or no licenses. Some cities have hefty fines or confiscate equipment if not licensed. And if the game(s) aren't added to your insurance. Everything you own could be gone in a second.

LTG : )

The ones your customers like. The cashbox doesn't lie.

LTG : )

I have a few games on location at a local brewery. Stranger Things pro and Ghostbusters pro have been my top earning games. Stern Star Wars did pretty good to, but I traded it. I think Mandalorian pro will be a good location game too (my Mandalorian pro should be arriving very soon). Also Deadpool, Avengers, Jurassic Park.

Like LTG said your coin box will show what games people like to play- every area/location is different. I don’t think you can go wrong with a few Stern pros to start

Your not vending anything as the customers receive nothing in return other then an experience. Your city may require i different license however.

Depreciation is nice!

It's still coin-op regardless of what the equipment is.

Rules and fees differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

I’ve been looking into this at our campsite also in IN .I’m a little confused with the laws, our state says under 5 machines no license .Still I made an appointment with a village official next week to clear it all up for me .

Don’t rely on anything you hear here. You gotta make sure you cross your Ts on this one.

Like Lloyd said call City Hall!

I’m not considering routing any games, but I’ve always been curious what kind of insurance policy operators get. Is it an umbrella type policy or a specific general liability policy or something else entirely?

Check with your state, county and city comptrollers or tax assessors/collectors office.
You might only need to pay one or all three depending.

for
florida
https://floridarevenue.com/Forms_library/current/dr18.pdf

miami-dade
https://www.miamidade.gov/taxcollector/library/forms/business-tax-categories-coin-machine.pdf

etc...

I pay $15 per year for a pinball license in my town.

Like crazy said read LTG post.

That’s a question for your insurance company.

The operator I work with has an umbrella policy, it’s pretty sweet. It basically workers wherever his equipment is, he’s covered.

Also call City Hall, but there is a great chance they will not care at all. Free play you really don’t need licenses or anything because there’s no revenue or transaction occurring.

You could just make it a token drop and skirt the rest of the rules too! Then get custom tokens made for your business and sell those as souvenirs.

There is a massive difference between routing pinball machines 30 years ago and trying to route them today. People and municipalities don’t think they even make pinball machines anymore. They always think they’re 50 year old antiques!

LTG 's comment is the only answer that matters. Go find out for your town.

Where I am at the city said, as I sat in the permit office, if it is 4 or less games, "don't bother us, we don't need to know." more than four and I had to get an arcade permit. No license was required. The county sends me a unsecured business property tax bill each year for 1% of the value of each pinball machine. We have about 30 machines, so that sucks. A couple cities over they have totally different rules and some can not even have pinball still.

Yep, each state and city varies, so need to do the legwork to see what is and is not legal.

Here in South Dakota, all coin-op games require an annual tax sticker at $35 per machine.

LTG said it best as to checking locally into licensing and insurance. But as far as free play goes, based on my experience as a volunteer tech where there are over a dozen routed machines and other locations where I play, I would make all machines coin drop but offer a variety of prices--anything from 50 cents to a buck--and people will pay and play. Customers (even kids) don't seem to mind paying, especially if they can get matches or free games--and if they have a variety of options they seem more likely to play, with the idea being that they see different games as offering "different deals." The 75 cent = 1 credit with the $2 = 3 credits option works really well for some. Ad maybe at least one game that offers 5-ball play is another way to enhance the variety of options. People honestly don't seem to mind paying a buck a game if it's a high-end machine and has a bill changer. And as others said, the cash box will tell the tale. I like the analogy of more roads taking you to the same place increases your travel options, and different people will choose different roads, with all of them being used.

Good luck!

I don't have an answer for this as I don't route my games. But obviously LTG knows what he's talking about. I'm replying because I live in St. Pete and would love to know where your coffee/donut shop is located. If you have pins in there I'll definitely be a patron.

As the above post asks, "where is the store located"?? My son attends the University of Tampa and loves playing.

You should direct your son to Reboot in Dunedin and Replay in Tarpon Springs - both great locations for pinball in Tampa Bay.

Great, thanks. I'm going down at the end of June and we will go and check it out.

I put machines in a local brewery for a couple years. I got general liability insurance for a couple million. If someone did something stupid like surf the machine, or push it over and it falls on them, I wanted to be covered if they sued me for their stupidity. I also wanted to be covered if anything happened that shut down the brewery, in case they pointed blame at me, eg if there was a fire that started in or near my machines, or an electrical fault that shut down production etc and they needed a scapegoat. Basically I wanted coverage for any oddball scenario that would have me saying "I'm never gonna financially recover from this".