Hard to say how often, but usually when they find one without the license, it is instantly confiscated and sold at auction.

If competing ops see unlicensed equipment, they will 'call it in' .

I remember in 1983 deploying Dragons Lair for 50 cents and people standing in long lines to play it.

A good Operator trick to revive a game that is slowing down in earnings is to put a big sign on the top:

"COMPLETELY REBUILT FLIPPERS - ALL NEW RUBBER"

Keep it up for a month or two after a rehab.

Players who have not played the game in months will be drawn to it.

A Yahoo group would be better so we don't have to join Facebook

It's only good as a last resort before swapping a game from a location.

Obviously players can tell if a game has crap flippers - don't let them get crappy.

But when you say "rebuilt", you trigger something in their deep reptilian brain that makes them want to play a game they normally don't play.

It totally works.

I'd limo tint that window pronto.

Not only will it save the cab, translight and playfield - it will let players actually see the ball.

Tell the establishment owner limo tint peels right off anytime.

.50 cents in 1985 (when games went to .50 cents) is $1.17 in today's dollars.

Pull them out, blow them out with an air compressor and test them on the bench.

Canadian dollar is .92 cents lately, so I'd just gladly take their quarters over the trouble of them clogging the machine.

Laundromats are great, with lots of change machines on hand, but because they are minimally supervised, sometimes pins just walk out the front door, while the employee was grabbing lunch across the street.

Even a place **with** an attendant can invite theft.

Often it is the minimum wage employee that tells his friends when is a good time to bust open the game.

Unless you tell the location how much the games cost, they usually have no idea.

I used to hear all the time from employees "Hey, you got any games I could buy for my home? Maybe something used for like $50?"

Sure, good social engineering can be more effective than a pry bar.

Two guys bringing in a big cardboard box, and taking out an "old" machine, could fool anyone.

Turn them off when not in use.

Back in the day, you would have so many quarters that the bank would refuse to take them all.

Match has always been an important part of the "legal gambling" in pinball.

Even when players are ready to walk away from a machine, if one player gets a match, the other player puts money in and plays one more round 90% of the time.