We own our pins and have 19 of them on the floor.

It has zero to do with the coin drop. They are an amenity to draw patrons. The coin drop is enough to cover the maintenance.

For the first time I put two pins in another bar a month ago. Figured I have lots of idle pins might as well see if they can generate some revenue. Thus far it’s not worth the hassle.

With the cost of machines these days, fuel; maintenance I just can’t see routing pins being a viable business model

I just checked the map, thank you for your business!
Aren’t those change machines the weirdest things? It seems a bit dubious, but the Op’s been doing this for 40+ years and I’m not arguing with his wisdom.

Depends on what you're routing. Pins... no . Vids and crane machines YES

I was some place this week, and at some point had a flash "wow a row of pinball machine would look great here" so I started reading and thinking about this.
I know this has all been discussed ad nauseam but let me summarize a bit some random information I picked up and calculations to be made, let me know if I got anything wrong.

*The setup*
-If you have one or two lonely machines anywhere, you don't have an attraction and it's almost never worth the trouble. If you're not a dedicated space (an arcade, museum, etc.), about 4 machines is a sweet spot where it may draw people and you're not just splitting the same money across more games.
-Of all type of coin ops, pinball is the worst ROI. Expensive machine, doesn't make that much money, a pain to deal with. *But* IMO if you want something that looks cool, not tacky, etc. and make it a destination, it's the best. Maybe you can complement it with one or two cool arcade machines which are less expensive and make more money (what are the big earners?) but if you want to "stay cool" you have to stay off the kiddie redemption stuff which have the best ROI.
-Theme is important, keeping your machines in tip top shape too if you want to be a pinball destination.
-How are people going to pay? At the very least you need a change machine nearby, better is bill acceptors or a change machine that takes credit cards.
-If you're in a bar you probably get most of your business during only a few hours throughout the week (end of the week nights, maybe some lunchtime) - if you're in some more public space you could expand your potential hours of business I would guess?

*The numbers*
I'm going to go about it a bit with the assumption that you'd need to buy most things even if in reality you already own them. I'll put a * if it's something people would typically already own.

Up-front:
---------
-5 brand new Stern Pros (one extra so you can rotate it out in case of trouble?) + 1 or 2 arcades - about 50k
-Some vehicle to carry them around - let's say 10k if you go cheap (but then you have to deal with the van!)*
-Let's say another 3k for whatever stuff I'm not thinking of (signage, etc?)
Total: about 65k
Let's say you don't want to pay it all out of pocket, you get a 45k loan and put up the other 20k.

Expenses:
----------
-Either pay rent for the space monthly or give a cut of profits (because at the end of the day that split is really paying for the square footage you're taking up). In my case it's not a bar and I don't see them being interested in a cut of profits deal, so let's make up some number, 500$/month
-Pay back the loan, let's say over 10 years: that's about 500$/month at 5%
-Parts and whatnot: let's say about 100$/month on average
-Insurance: let's go with 100$/month
-Unless you're planning to do all maintenance on-site you'd need some storage place to work on the machines: 500$/month if you can find some tiny space or something*
-Tech time: something people do themselves but let's assume 1h/week/machine on average. That's about 15h/month, let's go with 50$ bucks per hour (I know that's on the low end). 750$/month*
Total: 2500 if you count everything, 700$ if you don't count the* and you assume a split instead of an upfront rent

Revenue:
---------
-The actual money that goes in - very hard to estimate for me but let's say I make up something, and assuming it's a relatively popular spot that sees traffic during daytime - an average of 15 players per day across all machines, that put in an average of 5$. -2250$ ?? If you don't pay rent then it's a split and let's say that leaves you with 1800$ after a 4/1 split.
-If you do things legit and you don't try to double dip with the depreciation, you can say the machine depreciates about 3k over 3 years, and you can sell it back for 5k, but you then need to put it towards a new machine. So in theory that's not really a revenue but it ends up being flat. At the end of your operating adventure you do wind up with a 4-5 machine collection which you can then sell to get about 40k back (but you put in 20k up front, remember!)

So... long story short, if all these numbers aren't way off... if you do count everything, you're down 250$ per month. If you don't, you're up about 1000$ but then you spend a bunch of time taking care of the machines and it's not really scaleable.

Obviously the biggest variable is the money that goes in, and if I'm off there by a factor of 2 (for example 30 players per day on average would be 4.5k/month pre-split), then it becomes a decent deal.

So... what do you guys think?

I stopped reading after you wrote loan. What's a personal loan rate these days, if they will even give you one. 10% or the Stern 19% off their website. That's $5,000 or more interest per year. Why would you buy a $10,000 van either. You can rent a home depot truck for $20+whatever other fees each time you need to transport.

If you're putting up your own cash, then you're "self-loaning" that money - you still have to consider what you would have invested that money in otherwise so it's pretty much the same calculation.
Indeed, maybe you can rent a truck each time, because I suspect the moving around of machines is exceptional. And that's probably less hassle than owning the van in the first place. Something to factor in. The 10k loan for the van over 10 years at 5% is about 100$/month, so just renting each time probably makes this go down to like a 100$ a year.
If you only have that many machines I guess you have to assume that you're doing the work at home somehow, so it doesn't make much sense to consider a rental storage space - if you want to look at this from a scaling perspective, you do have to think about it though.

You’re forgetting that machines typically have a 6 month window or less when they’re in the “shiny new toy” phase and earn like crazy. Then they settle into their “normal” earnings and it is usually about 1/3rd of the “new toy” phase earnings. The lineup will get stale and earnings will stagnate so you have to swap in new machines. You can’t route Stranger Things or Guardians for 10 years.

Don’t forget the very real possibility of a catastrophic failure that really upends your profits! Imagine a node board blows. No game for you, unhappy customers and clients. Stern says “maybe in a year or two”

Lotta tough variables.

Right... then you probably have to scale it to 2-3 locations so that you can shuffle machines around as well, and/or you do need the storage + van to haul things around.
Seems to me like this doesn't really work standalone and it can be part of a bigger picture. Either you own the barcade and the beer/food makes the money or you also try to have some corporate rentals or whatnot and the location is sort of an advertisement for that business.
Kinda seems like you have to scale it to something bigger or else it's not worth the hassle, it's big or nothing.

The honeymoon phase is real for sure. It helps to rotate things a little, but you certainly can route anything for any amount of time. A wall of Sterns is cool and all, but is also a little boring.

Besides tournament plays, I have one player that plays almost nothing but Metallica. Another plays Funhouse 10 times a night, and then Ghostbusters once about half way through his visit. The kids that are dragged to the rink every week for their brother’s hockey practice know the best value for them is Old Chicago. 25 cents for 5 balls is more fun for them than anything else.

Even the barcade downtown has a little variety. No EMs, but some new sterns, some CGC remakes, and then a Revenge From Mars and a Back to the Future. This is mostly college kids but the most played pin there is always Stern Star Wars. They have no idea what they are doing, but it’s Star Wars. It could be the Data East one and it would still get played. Variety covers all the bases.

Exhibit A…
This Mando pro has earned its cost x2, so far, with a 50/50 split it has paid itself off.
But I could easily sell it for 5k, so I would say it has “earned” 5k, so far.
I will keep routing it as long as it earns, I now have no cost other than repairs and parts, and the new season is about to drop…

CE0612D2-799F-429D-82AA-6C8B9AC5465D (resized).jpeg

Holy crap! What type of location is this at?

Two questions for the OP: do you enjoy the hobby and do you need more
stress in your life? If the answers are yes and no, don't get involved with
putting pins on location.

I did this with a friend many years ago now. Just for fun and to get a feel
for what it was like. Just like you, enjoy fixing up pins. We did this for about
7 years, made a decent amount of money at it considering we put out older
machines.

But here's the rub; when your machines get broken into, scratched up,
generally ruined in the long haul AND you have to make trips out
frequently to deal with this type of damage, as well as the usual maintenance
it'll get old fairly fast. In other words it'll no longer be fun.
Actually kept me from enjoying the hobby aspect for a while.

IMO trying to make money from a hobby is stupid!

Insurance is also very important these days. All it takes is one
dumb-ass teen that tips YOUR machine over onto himself
or someone else and YOU get sued. This almost happened to
me and the reason I bailed out. The risk is too great.

And a follow up, after I bailed the location owner decided to
contact a real coin-op outfit, who put their games in and
were all STOLEN within an year.

My sage (OK, free) advice is buy project pins, fix them up and
sell. Use the profit to buy more. Repeat. Thats what I've been
doing and having a blast.

So let's say that's about 18 months ago, so about 700$ per month. I was saying about 2200$ over 4 machines (so about 550/machine/month) in what I think would be a decent spot so that might not be that far off a guess.
Is that a lone machine?

So that’s about $181 a week since you bought it. Keeping earnings consistently that high is difficult. This must be a popular brewery or pinball location, and even then, are you holding frequent tournaments and leagues? Those will boost earnings much higher.
At 50/50 it’s earned you $6975, minus maintenance and repair costs, which aren’t nominal. Plus travel costs to get there and time spent, it’s break even. If you’ve got multiple machines out, it can be profitable, but if someone wants to do this to *make money* this should exemplify why almost no one aside from hobbyists are routing pins anymore.

A few cranes next to those pins would have made 4 times that at minimum.

For reference, we own a full arcade with about 98 pieces. 8 of which are newer pinball, Stern and JJP.

The pinballs are consistently in the bottom 10, regardless of theme or age.

Dead last is a centipede cabinet.

If I were to combine ALL OF THE pins, they reach top 20 from time to time in earnings. But individually, bottom of the list, all the time.

The players are also, well, us. And get tired of existing titles and want new machines faster than they are willing to play the games. At an average of 30-60 every two weeks per game... its a labor of love.

Strange to me. Whenever I go to an arcade, I feel like the arcade machines just sit, and pinball is busier. Is your place free play, or coin drop? I wonder if people are hesitant to drop dollars into a machine, as opposed to quarters.

I just got a text from my best regular, he’s been there for 2 hours, he got 29 free games by beating the replays AUTO-PERCENTAGING IS ON! Max replays are set to 5. He happily told me he spent 3 dollars and the shooter rod tip fell off and the ball got stuck on 2 games. The cranes are the saving grace.

$3 profit and the games got the hell beat out of them while losing me money. My place looks jumping, but most pinball players are standing there putting a ton of plays on the games while spending very little. Only value is that it looks busy which makes more people come in.

Wouldn't be very smart for them though eh?

It’s been around to several different spots, mostly sports bars and breweries.

Years ago a sure way to make money was build a route. At least a dozen locations.

Then sell it. Games and something for the location they are in. Contract for that goes with the sale.

That way you don't have to suffer the ups and downs of the industry.

LTG : )

Have you considered charging by the hour?

Why do you have max replays at 5? Is it to look busy while people play free games?

So if I was going to route to make $s, I’d route video games. Way lower cost, way lower maintenance, better coin drop. A Ms Pac-Man will beat any pin any day I reckon. A 60 in 1 multicade can be easily had for $800. A prize crane will do even better.

Pins are a passion not a route to profit (pun intended). We have them at my arcade because I want to have them. It’s part of our identity. But seriously skee ball and our cranes will kick our pins ass on number of plays all day long.

What I tend to focus on at my arcade are experiences you can’t replicate on a PlayStation. In that sense this is where the pins have a home. DDR, air hockey, Chexx hockey, skee ball, basketball, etc etc. This keeps people coming back. The old school video games help as filler but it’s the mechanical physical stuff that I think seals the deal.

The problem with pins is that to most lay public if you’ve played one pin you’ve played them all. They do however separate our EMs from everything else. Our most infrequently played pins are our 80s solid state. Our most played are a tie between EMs and Sterns. Chimes have a nostalgia that early electronic sounds do not.

Because default is usually 10 or 20. I figured 5 was fair, 1 felt too cheap. It’s now set to extra balls instead of replay.

The pins get play, but a game of pinball can last a while, where the rest are all quick play, high return.

The money in pins are the "rest of it" they round out a location nicely. And the players often are drinking. I would say my pins earn 3-1 at the bar over what they are actually showing on the report. But a route guy doesn't see any of that money, just what hits the coin box.