ForceFlow I can't change any of my forum settings: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/forum-settings-error

Don’t forget about when some white supremacist plows into your location with his car while he’s trying to mow down a crowd of innocent people.

There’s 100% money in routing games. Just have to find it.

One thought. Years ago there were 300 operators in Minneapolis Minnesota alone.

Now there is maybe 25 operators in the whole state.

If you could make money in coin op, there'd be a lot more doing it.

LTG : )

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My neon sign guy told me of a place that lost windows and neon sign. Didn't lose any merchandise. Because the workers had a few cases of bear spray and anyone that stuck their face through the window got sprayed.

Another place that got windows broke and lost everything. The next round of riots they only lost the windows and neon signs. They adopted the bear spray defense.

LTG : )

“This has happened more times than you would believe at my arcade and my side job. I see at LEAST 7 pairs of shit-covered underpants stinking up the bathroom every year.
It blows my mind.
Who are these people?
How do you go commando after crapping your pants??????
HOW DO I NEVER NOTICE THESE PEOPLE??? You should be able to SMELL the guy who just crapped himself and left the evidence behind..
Insanity.”

And for this reason alone, I’m out!

Maybe they are on a great game with people waiting and instead of doing the humane thing and running to the bathroom they just crap their pants right there in the middle of the game, one good nudge could cause a code red!

Oh yeah, if you have to service your game during business hours the customers also assume the playfield being up means its show and tell time. Which, for an enthusiast is always fun but if your there because something isn’t right and someone is upset and you’ve been pulled away from your other plans….you aren’t going to be in the mood.

My brother is a computer expert you should call him, he could fix that.

A drunk assisting you is a wonderful experience too.

And don't rip a customer a new one, the location wants you to be nice to everybody.

And watch your tools and cashbox, everybody assumes they are free for the taking.

Even game parts. Years ago when powerballs weren't available, I believe it was John Ross who had one removed from a game he was servicing and replaced with a steel ball so it wouldn't come up with a missing ball on power up.

LTG : )

I'm no financial or operator expert, but I feel I have enough common sense to say, no it's not a good idea. Not enough people like, care for or know about pinball. If you do do it, better get some decent insurance. Our country is very sue convenient. Our legal system allows it and we have plenty shark attorneys. You'd be better off with more modern games that require little to no maintenance.

If you can create a pinball hype on social media, that would be a game changer. All the social media sheep would be all over pinball and you would become rich.

Incidentally, if you are servicing a game on location and a drunk starts working you to buy him a drink. Tell him you will, and that you want one too. Write what you want on a piece of paper and fold it up and tell the drunk to give it to the bartender, to be sure he gets your drink right.

When the bartender reads the note, you won't have anymore problems with that drunk.

I should mention the drink you want is, "this is a stick up, give me all the money".

LTG : )

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Yep that was him. Incident in question took place at his retail store by the fairgrounds.

I’m not sure what year but I’d suspect late 90s maybe early 2000s. Not much time passed between WMS/BLY closing and him ending his lease on Como Ave.

Around that time people would part out TAF just for the ramp.

I have a route. Jukes, ATMs, and crane/self refemption make money. I have a few pins out, but only because I like pinball.
Running a few pins on the side is a labor of love. One precovid story I like to share, I had a MMr and MBr next to each other at a bar. In one month they did about $500, but the crane sitting next to them brought in $700 after prizes. The crane cost about 1/6th of the pins.

Cool! Thinking about moving over there, if so we’ll come and buy some of your stuff and play the pins.

I ran a coin-op route for many years in the Atlanta area, the only machines that consistently made money for us, in order: video poker, internet jukeboxes, coin op pool tables. Bars make the most money for us, loving pinball as much as I do, I would never put a new pin in a bar, actually our bars were more like taverns, rowdy, sometimes rough. Pins get really beat up, beer spilled all over, cigarettes etc…. Wouldn’t do it

Just like they say in real-estate. Location Location Location. I got lucky with my 2nd Location after getting kicked out of my first. Hopefully to get another location where I can have at least 4 machines to start.

TheShadowsNose

What happened to your location? A car smashed through it? Sounds crazy!

I’m not an operator. But I’ve always thought for the money was made on the back end, not from the routing itself. Every year the games devalue on your tax form, until they’re “worthless” then they quietly get moved to your basement. Then after that they get sold privately for what ever their value actually is. The tax write off, coin drop, and “end of life sale” working in harmony make it worth while.

Am I wrong?

Legally? Yes, you’re wrong.

I know the work and hours involved is demanding, it's a never ending job..... but to say it isn't financially beneficial is disingenuous. I know a few operators whose private collections and skyrocketed. And they always seem to find the hard to find pins, including one on this very forum not too long ago.

Location and theme of game is king.

Why would any operator say "Yes - the water is great - come on in!"?

Lots of companies have a "salvage" value for various assets which is simply the value of the asset once fully depreciated.

Just call it $500 for each of your pinball machines. You can personally buy them and do anything you want with them after that.

It's totally different if the game hasn't been fully depreciated and still has value.

If there was, I'd see a LOT more games out in the wild.

I hardly see any.

You still have to pay tax on the item whenever you sell it for a profit, whether it’s through your business or personally.

I would think that a problem would be the lack of people having/using cash. Even most vending machines now accept credit cards, because people just don't have cash in their pocket anymore.

Similarly, I would think that you would then need to have a card acceptor and internet connection or you'll have people who can't play the machine even if they want to. Of course, that setup would cut further into your profits...

How much does the credit card company get out of each vending machine transaction?

I can’t answer that question, but I was at an arcade on Thursday where the change machine allowed you to swipe a debit card for $10 in quarters. First time I’ve ever seen that.

Also, as a customer I’m a big fan of having dollar bill acceptors on every pinball machine. It’s so nice to just have a wad of dollars, rather then a huge pocket of change.

Around 3% of sales, and another $1.50 or so per transaction.

That never happened. The usual upvotes as well. SMH

Fully understand that but no one knows what happens to the games once I buy them.

My suggestion to anyone who routes machines... Cameras, cameras and more cameras.

Put security cams up everywhere. Make them highly visible too. That way trouble makers see them and think twice before damaging anything. And make sure you have them outside too. That way, when a scum bag who damaged something goes into their car, you'll have the plate number ready for the cops.

I would think it would have to be less than that for vending machines. Often the thing they are selling is less than $1.50.

Might be. But that’s pretty typical for processing fees. I’ve never hooked up a credit card reader to a machine so not entirely sure.

I can't recommend taking credit cards enough. Most people just don't carry around that much cash anymore. You definitely will see a significant uptick in sales which outpace the high fees. It goes from a person spending the $5 in their pocket to $20-30 on the card.

Ok, the coin-op distributor/suppliers run this legal gambit. You sell me a vending machine. I pay $2500 for it. I run it on a vending route and claim depreciation on it till its off my books. I sell the old machine back to the supplier, and buy a new "refurbished" machine for $2500. Ok now it's back on my books.

The dealer/distributor takes your "old" machine, puts a new face on it, cleans and services it, resells it for $2500 as refurbished.

You can't say it doesn't happen, I know, I've seen it and it's technically LEGAL, it's just a grey area that doesn't get much sunlight. I bought and ran a soda vending machine back in the early 2000's, and this was all explained to me by the distributor. The racket is the "refurbishment". Hose it out, put a new ad plexi on front, maybe replace a bad compressor and new flavor cards... takes a tech all of an hour to turn around. Minty fresh now and for sale.

You like maintaining games but the location near you sucks for maintenance. Instead of routing your own games, talk to the operator whos games you dont like and ask to maintain his. You may or not get paid but you can have fun maintaining and knowing the games are in good shape to play.

For each quarter collected, the sales tax you have to pay on behalf of the customer is about 2% less in FL. Amusement+Vending tax.
https://floridarevenue.com/Forms_library/current/gt800020.pdf

My suggestion is look at all the security cam footage on Youtube.

The police aren't CSI. Might ask you who the people are. Most likely won't care.

LTG : )

Mine is almost 8% off my gross. So adding debit card or charge card machines aren't happening. Those costs and charges, not worth adding compared to return.

My sister closed in Minneapolis in 2001 when state, city, and warehouse district sales tax hit 10%.

Comes a point where it just ain't worth it.

LTG : )

There is a large disconnect between what an enthusist thinks a pinball route is, and what an amusement route operator thinks a pinball route is.

Here is what my friend Roger says to everybody who talks to him about (operating an amusement route) putting their games at location:

"Become an amusement operator! All you do is collect the money!"

Here is what you likely don't know:

You need a large external source of money to support the pinballs you have on your amusement route.

Here in North Carolina, it is illegal gambling houses. They call them "Arcades" They call them "Sweepstakes". The illegal gambling supports your competition, and has for a generation. Amusement operators are making money with machines that bring $2000 a week per machine profit levels. (That's not gross income, that's net after everything else is taken out.)

When I worked in Kansas, illegal gambling didn't support the cost of operating pinballs, it was teddy bear cranes. Teddy bear cranes can be the backbone of your business pretty easily. No machine (other than gambling) makes more net profit at the end of the day than a prize dispensing machine like a teddy bear, or a redemption (the game gives tickets to be redeemed for prizes.) My company (the company I worked for) had 2700 'bins' of teddy bear cranes, and 31 pinballs. If there was money, we'd have had hundreds of pinballs.

Marc at Marco pinball parts said that he didn't understand operators. "You buy a pinball, operate it for two years, bring it to an amusement auction and sell it for about what you paid for it, or more than what you paid for it."

Yeah. Sounds good.

But for the $10,000 I spend for a single new Stern Premium pinball, I can buy 4-5 teddy bear cranes that will each make me more money, have less time out-of-order, and I can keep them at a location for 10-20 years without the location insisting that you 'take that piece of crap out and get me something new, or you'll find it on the curb when you come next week.'

If you have ANY attachment to the following statements:

"Yeah, but pinball machines are cool!"

"Everybody loves pinball"

"People don't have anyplace to play pinball..."

Here is a good one:

"Kids don't have anything to do in my community..."

If you have attachment here... strongly consider that your goals are not aligning with the business realities.

The reality of the business is something that amusement operators have known for years.

It's all about the hard cash that you can get right now, and the hard cash you can make sustainable.

A good brew pub location can make more than the usual sad numbers that a pinball will generate...

And this is the thing that you don't hear honestly about the reality of pinballs for money:

Your best pinball will average $200 a week through the coin slot when it's the hottest machine in the room.

Your second best pinballs will average $100 a week through the coin slot after the new has worn off.

Your 'filler pinballs' will make under $50 a week.

So your average income is stupidly low, when the machines cost $10,000 each.

If YOU own the bar, this is not impossible to manage. But you likely won't be an excellent bar owner (one set of skills) AND an excellent pinball repair guy/operator (different set of skills). So you'll put machines in someone else's bar... and you'll pay that bar owner a commission that traditionally is is 50% of the cash pan... so you'll actually see half of the above numbers.

Now, right now.

Right now, at the best locations. The best brew pubs, the best, most exciting pinball palaces.

You'll see numbers like $1000 a week for the top newest piece. $200-300 per machine being the lowest earners in the line up of six to thirty (!) pinballs.

As my friend Charles says "It won't last". But it's an amazing experience!

There is a cost here. The top pinball palaces want all of the top ten Pinside Top 100 machines (average cost per machine approaching $13,000), and they want the newest Stern's the newest Jersey Jacks (average cost per machine $9,000-$11,000). They also (since they aren't paying for it, you are) will insist that you get them a Halloween, etc... and then when that pinball is disappointing and never makes a significant fraction of what it took to buy and maintain it, you'll have to dump out of it and all your other 'loser' pinballs at a loss.

The other cost.

Service.

I've got a friend who services a top pinball bar. He shows up Wednesday morning, and works all day (8-10 hours) on the pinballs. Then he returns on Friday with parts, and can usually leave by noon, but frequently he'll put in another full day. That's 12-16 hours of skilled labor every week to support 25-30 machines at the top levels of play.

Sad thing is, even if your pinball makes $35 on average, it can still cost you hours upon hours of service time.

Finally, here is something that my friend Roger should say to anyone asking about starting an amusment route:

"Anybody can make money for three years".

For the first three years, you make modest to significant money. Maybe enough to just make it worth your while, maybe enough to be very excited...

But then.

All your machines start breaking a lot more often than when they were less than three years old.

And here is the kicker...

Your customers want all new equipment.

If your business plan doesn't make enough money for a complete equipment swap every three years (sustainable) you'll struggle, you'll go out of business.

This is why the amusement operators need such a large amount of cash in reserve to operate pinballs on their amusement routes. The other stuff makes enough money that the constant need for fresh equipment can be sustainable.

But all is not gloom and doom!

People with a passion can make impossible things happen. You'll have to work a hundred hours a week, you'll have to convince everybody around you that your vision is perfect (even when it's shaky, even when it's failing...). You'll have to be ready to have a backup plan if the market crashes and you have to get out of the business in a hurry. All that...

And yet...

With enough passion, you can transform your little corner of the world.

If you are the best in the world at what you do, the money will come, and the money can be quite astonishing.

So, I'd say, be that guy.

The guy with a vision. The guy with a passion that infects other people.

It'll be a hell of a ride, even if you only make money for three years.

(Note: Before people dogpile here with how much their machines are making, when I'm saying your pinball machines don't make much money... Yeah. I'm super glad to hear that you are doing well! But there's also the reality that you might be the guy who only makes numbers that match what I'm suggesting here.

I'm not sure that there is anything like an accurate source of average weekly income IN TRUTH that comprehensively covers the actual earnings of all the pinball machines out there. I fully respect people who are operating pinballs right now, and I admit that I've been in retail pinball sales to people's homes for a number of years now, so my figures may be quite a bit out of date.

Post here about what you are seeing in current pinball earnings!)

"financially beneficial" is relative. Like I said I'm no expert. Nothing disingenuous about my post. It's what I feel. You're free to ignore my opinion, route your machines and enjoy all that "financial benefit".

That post took me on a journey, from being broke in the trailer park to winning the lottery and then back to the dung heap. I never wanted to start a route more and less than I do right now.

I use to run video games on a route and can say that everything that was said for pinball machines was true for video games. The one thing was less maintenance on video games but the trade off was the machines were broken into more often. Nothing like going to a convenience store to collect meager sales and see the owner with a crowbar trying to remove your external lock on the cabinet. (Yes the machine was removed immediately ).

I do income taxes as a side gig and I tell anyone starting up any business - show me in WRITING what you expect to make for the next three years and how are you going to get that. If somebody tells me that they will lose money for the first few years I say, fine, show me how and when you will start making it and be able to live off of it or hit the target amount of money you are expecting to make. Contrary to multi-million dollar investments in businesses that are start-ups with innovating ideas that have large pockets and need time to get their business model adapted, sole proprietorships etc need to hit the ground making money immediately otherwise don't bother about going into business (just my own experience with people and businesses).

I also ask - what are your financial reserves in case you are 100% wrong about your plan? Do you have 1 -3 years income stashed to protect yourself and take care of personal expenses if you go full time with this? Even if you are going part time, expect your costs to be greater than whatever you think they are.

What is your exit strategy for the business:
*If it is a success?
*If it is a failure?

As others said as well - Get Liability Insurance. Ensure you have all the appropriate licenses that are required by law where you are operating.

If you are doing this because you are passionate and just as a hobby, not caring if you are making money or losing money - it is a hobby. There are other things the IRS looks at to see if you are running it as a hobby or business. Keep good records of your business. Don't try to run it as a loss for more than 2 years. A reasonable and sane person gets out of a losing business. (Yes, I know we are all unreasonable and insane here ). In the United States the IRS does not allow tax deductions for hobbies but you will be showing income from the hobby and taxed on it.

Personally, I don't think it is worth the time or aggravation to get into a pinball route, for business or a hobby.

Good luck with whatever you decide and congratulations on asking first and getting the realities of the business world

Oh and some words of wisdom from when I ran a comic book and collectibles delivery route:

"The easiest way to kill something you love doing for fun is to turn it into a business."

Though not always true - it certainly changes how you look at things.

Lloyd my friend, they're so busy with murders, rapes and robberies, that you're probably right. They have no time for petty matters (as they'd see it) like that. It's sad and unfortunate, but it's the times in which we live.

Still, security cams are a wise move that's not a lot of money and can be a great deterent.

I really wanna see the pic Bud posted

You'd be a fool to route games without the cover of na LLC and liability insurance. Forget the games being insured for their inherent value to you... you don't want a scenario where a customer is injured (and comes after you) or your game smokes out a business or causes some sort of issue resulting in loss of business.

About 8 years ago I decided I wanted to route some games locally. Got the LLC established, but the costs of insurance AND yearly county fees (per game) added up to much more than I was willing to sink with an unknown cash-flow coming in.

Word to the wise: do your homework and do things the right way, or you might get stung!

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I own a small brewery and we installed an arcade about a year ago. We have a hybrid model with an operator running skee-ball, basketball, two cranes, two pins and a juke box. We are up to five pins that we own now, for a total of seven. The machines that the operator owns net about $800/month, split two ways. My 5 other pins net about $60/week, which is enough to maintain them. In my case, I have value added because I own the location, so I absorb all the additional revenue in beer sales when we host tournaments, and for the (quickly growing) group of people that are falling in love with pinball that come to my location because it’s the only place to play in town. Looking at the revenue from the pins versus the other machines, even though I have a lot of people playing pinball, it’s clear that if I were just an operator pinball would not be profitable. However, since I own the bar, the pins are making me significant money because good players, of which we have many, can play a machine for a LOT longer than, say, a claw machine. The machine itself doesn’t make a lot, but I do because they are staying and drinking. All that to say; no, do not route pins to make money. If you want to increase pinball culture in your area, enjoy working on machines, and are just passionate about it, absolutely go for it. It will at least (probably) pay for itself, not counting repair time. But as a moneymaking proposition… well, it really isn’t.