Phil, the author, can probably explain it better. But at a high level it's making the game easier or harder to win based on its recent history. Dropping coins steps it one way and awarding credits steps it the other way. What stepping does is move wipers across contacts that enable/disable chances (or circuits) that make winning more likely. It's trying to maintain a long term winning percentage

High Speed may have been the first solid state game to do this but bingos were doing it much earlier.

One big difference between the reflex unit and steppers found in EM pinball machines is that the reflex unit takes many steps to move a wiper on or off a contact while pinball steppers usually accomplish that with each step. So for example winning 100 credits might step the reflex unit many times but only move the wipers a position or two.

/Mark

No. These games generally allow you drop extra coins (or use earned credits) at the start of a game for chances at increasing the payouts, enabling extra features (e.g. two in a row counts as three in a row in certain places), etc. Or after the last ball you might drop coins (or use credits) for a chance at an extra ball. There are all kinds of enticements to get you to spend more on a single game. The reflex unit alters the chances that the next coin would turn on another feature or increase the payout.

So for example on a nickel game, you can play for a nickel, but using more coins or credits might give you a better chance at winning, or winning more.

Good explanation Mark.

One other point about what it does in play relates to the two cog wheels. One ‘loosens your opportunities (more teeth ie less movement) and the other tightens your opportunities (less teeth ie more movement). These cog wheels are changeable.

That is correct except for the intervention of the ‘establishment’ paying off the winner and deleting the replays with the off switch.

At this moment (usually moments before I walked in see a vacant game and rush to it to play) the game is wound tight, opportunities are slim and the next player looses more than the first player ever made.

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Bally used something similar in their flipper games as well. It was called the "thumper control unit". It would make the bumpers light more or less frequently, depending on how often the game was "beaten".

Interesting. Do you recall a game or two that featured the "thumper control unit"? I'd like to have a look at the schematic.

At least my Hootenanny and 50/50 had such an unit. It stepped two steps up at replay, and one step down at game start. The unit controls how often bumpers are lit, so making slight adjustments in scoring.

1960s Ballys have them. My "Hay Ride" has one, and I had a "Mad World" which also had one.

I don't understand most of the stuff on bingo.cdyn.com either

to add to what others said, the reflex unit would be illegal in Nevada ... now. Nevada and I assume most regulated gambling locations require the outcome of a bet to be unaware of what happened in the past. For example, the odds of winning the jackpot on a spin of slot machine reels is always the same - even if you just won the jackpot on the previous spin.

the reflex unit is using past performance to change the odds of something happening, and it only effects what happens when coins/credits are played before shooting the first ball and when playing for extra balls.

for example, if the odds of the scores increasing are 50% when the reflex unit is fully reset, the odds may only be 20% right after you win 200 credits.

it may take 300 coins/credits played for the odds of score increase to return to 50%.

if you are playing a bingo for money and you play multiple coins/credits to increase scores or enable features, the sensible thing to do is not play a machine that someone just won a bunch of credits on ... it will be less likely to do something good when you drop in a coin/credit.