I will try to embrace this new technology.

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There is literally nothing about PayRange that is stopping you from doing that, so saying "I don't like it" seems more "yelling at cloud" than constructive.

Sunglasses are great new tech.... invented 1929 by Sam Foster

faz

And bluetooth was invented in the 60s.

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You weird, hows that ?

John P. Dayhuff
Battle Creek, MI.
269-979-3836

I was glad to see my location games offered this option. I get $50 in quarters every time I go to the bank, which isn't often.. Sometimes I forget those quarters at home or in a different car. I forget to carry cash a lot of the time (and sometimes my wallet), so being able to play when I'm in a pinch is a huge plus!

Knowing that the op takes a 4% hit will be enough for me to try to pay cash whenever possible, but I like having a backup plan.

Reverse the polarity!

faz

Tried this out yesterday and loved it. It's nice to have another option as I don't carry a lot of cash with me.

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Funny I seem to think the same thing every time I get in a line and someone breaks out their checkbook.

Totally agree with this statement. This is about the next generation of players. Not the current one so much.

Einstein never said this, nor anything close to it.

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I can't speak to how well it works, but I will say this. My friends and I were at a bar-cade and trying to get smaller bills for the change machine and the bartender was super busy and it took quite some time. When she did get to us, she rolled her eyes when we asked for smaller bills and seemed annoyed by us. We definitely did not feel welcome nor did we want to go back to get more small bills. I get it, bartenders make money off of people who drink and get big tabs and not someone drinking coke and playing pinball all night(in the end I tipped her for getting change). Pay range would have helped that uncomfortable situation or bringing my own change would have as well, but I don't really want to deal with that.

Patronize a business that appreciates you.

LTG : )

Ah, if it were always that easy.

I totally get where you are coming from and can appreciate you looking out for your operator. Most people would probably not take their operators fees into consideration, so you are already nicer than the average player. But 4 cents on a $1 game or 2 cents on a $0.50 game is not going to hurt the operator too much. In fact, if PayRange can get even ONE extra game out of you, it will come close to offsetting the 4% hit they are taking. Of course, that is dependent on the number of games you play during a given visit.

I think the main goal with pay range is to generate more plays and more money. So the 4% is just the cost of doing business.

I always scratch my head when I run into "cash only" businesses, that seem to fret over a few points and don't look at the big picture of offering more payment options and raising revenues overall. It's a false belief to think that you'll get all the same business with cash as you would if you offered credit cards.

The ops in this thread that have spoken about using it seem to feel it has helped their business overall.

I agree, if I run out of coins and would like to continue playing, I'll use the payrange option. The ops in our area aren't really ops, they're collectors that have put their own pins out on route. I was involved in the venture for a short time before my life got a little crowded for me to properly maintain my game.

I know that sometimes you just on impulse go to the barcade, but if you know you are going out for the night, you should have a bunch of small bills already in your pocket.

You need to tip your waiter in cash (the owner deducts 30% taxes and 5% **service fee** if you pay on a card) and you need small bills for games, strippers, street performers... normal stuff.

I've got a friend that never has any money in his wallet, so he always holds everybody up while he tries to find a money machine that is not empty and is **on his network**. Sometimes on a weekend, this can be several stops. If it's only going to be the two of us, I don't even bother to call him, because it makes me crazy.

Alright Dad.

Real operators (guys with hundreds of coinop gaming machines), only report 50% of their cash earnings.

So it's not just paying a 5% fee, it's paying taxes on 50% more income; because you can't hide reported card income.

The coinop biz is hard enough to survive in these days.
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Hobby income from guys with 25 machines is probably so small that those guys are hopefully reporting a loss (if their accountants are good).

I would only consider paying with my phone if the items were of equal value, like, say, a $400 iPhone for a ColorDMD.

Exactly. Why not give potential customers more ways to pay and raise earnings?

I get it. But to dig in (not you, we're just talking here) and not even test or try it seems self defeating.

One option is declare your payrange, pocket the coins that still come in. Isn't that a win win?

Cash will never die, but as has already been pointed out in this thread, sometimes is an obstacle.

Another way to look at it is.... if you are denying your business 20% in earnings, to save yourself on paying tax on 50% of your take... how much are you really saving and aren't you in fact hurting your business?

Operator 1:
Makes $200k from their route. Declares $100k.

Operator 2 with same route:
Makes $240k from route ($40k bump from payrange). Declares Payrange take and tops it up with cash earnings, declaring 50%, $120k. Pockets the other $120k.

Now I don't know how much payrange might add. But it seems like the kind of thing you test on a couple of locations and see what happens, then roll it out to more if you are satisfied it is helping you. If it doesn't help, then it gets ditched.

But to not even test it?

It seems like big news here on Pinside, but the coinop rags have been reporting about electronic payment systems and their bottom line figures for years.

Some banks charge $10 a month to receive daily deposits from the processor, some processors charge for each unit after an introductory year expires... you know how many scams they can come up with to add fees - it's like a baby Comcast.

I would like to be either operator in your world

If I could bring in 100k I would happily claim it all!

Well, I was speaking to vid's comment about someone with hundreds of machines on route. So that would be a larger operator.

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I was just in Phoenix and saw Camelback Mountain!

Same here. I know that even if cell and smart phones existed, my parents would never have spent what they cost today even in inflation adjusted dollars back in the 60's & 70's. We were given a dime to use for an emergency call (pay phones were everywhere and were a dime back then). But, when the movie let out and we needed a ride home, we put in the dime, called home letting the phone ring once and hung up. Got the dime back and one of my parents came to the theater and got us. Free paging courtesy of Michigan Bell.

I remember when Rockwell came out with the "K56" Modem cards. Virtually every fax machine built had them. Kept the plant on Butterfield Trail in El Paso (where all of the Gottlieb circuit boards were built) open for several years.

Rockwell Corporate actually asked all employees during the upcoming Christmas break to send a snail mail letter to one or two fax makers "urging them" to use Rockwell's K56 modem cards in their fax machines.

This is primarily done for tax "purposes". The underground eCONomy is a wonderful thing.

You're someone who gets where this all is leading. A cashless society is a locked down controlled society. All for your "Safety" of course....

Love the multipage "Feature articles" in RePlay & Play Meter. Followed by full page ads by the COmpaNy featured in the article. For every three full page color ads purchased, we'll include a feature article. Five ads gives you front page billing and six ads give you the front page photo.

Or SiriusXM.

If you brought in a lot more than you currently do in revenue, you'd get so hungry for more which would require more equipment that you would likely try and hide even more income freeing up cash to buy the new games. I love how distributors still take cash for new equipment.

This just happened last night with one of the kiddies behind the register of a new pizza place I wanted to try. Pizza came to $15.79. Handed him a $50 bill. He looked down at the cash in his drawer and was befuddled on what my change should be. Even shouted over to the owner who was busy making pies at the time so couldn't help him. He squirmed a bit. I waited a few more seconds then told him "$34.21". He counted that out and handed it to me still with a confused look on his face. What are these kids being taught these days? And school is more expensive then ever? Glad I grew up in the late 70's when doing math in your head was a normal occurrence and no Common Core BS to dumb the kids down.

I just ordered a few payranges for a few pins I have in location. Did everybody here need to install the relay to get them to work with their machines?

And also this link states they estimate only about 8% of the worlds money is actually physical cash so I think payrange is a great idea for operators. But I will let them prove themselves and decide then.

http://money.howstuffworks.com/currency6.htm

Logan Hardware has there game at $0.25-$1.00

But 1 New Zealand Dollar equals 0.66 US Dollar

I'm still of the opinion that not taking someone's dollar, so you can avoid paying 20% (or whatever) tax on it is self defeating. More payment options = more revenue, and you can still take as much cash as people have on them. But what do I know.

All of my AMI jukeboxes use the ami app & take credit cards at the box itself. I also operate several ATMs. I even try to put change machines in bars that are too busy to give you quarters. Im all about finding a way for the customer to spend money at one of my accounts. PayRange is something I might try in change machines in my arcades where american changer wants $1k to sell you an update kit to accept credit. $50 is much more appealing upfront cost.

If you've got bill acceptors, you just need the BlueKey device. If you don't, you need that other thing too (the "relay", I guess?).

I've got it in 15 machines, all 1992 and up, some plugged into the service outlet, some not. PM me if you have any questions.

This pic shows my PayRange earnings from the beginning on 15 machines across 2 locations. When I first installed it, I promoted it a lot in conversations with regular players, but got a little discouraged when people just kept using quarters. But use has been steadily increasing. That bump in week 52 is (I believe) due to the final week of a month long selfie tournament where people take photos of their scores and submit them.

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Just asked one of my best regulars (who likes to camp out on Bally/Williams Lawlor games for long periods of time) what he thinks of PayRange. He also happens to be the oldest regular in terms of age...he's in his 60s.

"...lets me track how much I'm putting into the machines for my little Pinball addiction. But I think I could say that I'm old-school and thought I would keep putting quarters in because it's part of the tradition. And as a late adopter, having put it on my phone, I'm not sure I would go back to quarters if given the choice."

"I have also gotten used to just putting a bunch of credits on the machine in advance, knowing I'm going to do so anyway. And keeping my phone right of the front of the machine so I don't have to reach in my pocket. Is that even a further sign of my addiction? too lazy to get up and get change for a five?"

So that shows the payrange earnings ... But have the overall earnings gone up?

ie are your existing clients still spending the same amount, but using payrange instead of cash?

rd

My earnings have been on an upward trajectory at my bigger location since I started 15 months ago, so it's hard to figure out. (Before I took over, there were pins, up to 10 at one point, but it had dwindled down to 4. I took over, and came in with 10, but instead of being in the front of the bar, the pins are in a dedicated room way in the back that people are still discovering after all this time). There is also seasonality that goes along with it - when the weather is nicer, more people go out downtown, and the bar sees more patrons. League and tournament play probably affects it also. I ran a super selfie league in April, July, and December. I had regular weekly leagues running in between.

Happy to try and figure it out if you can suggest a good method. Below is the graph of daily average per machine at that location. I installed PayRange the first week of December.

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Often, working out things like this are tough. So many factors ... Especially with people still discovering your machines, as you say.

Probably the only way we could find out if payrange increased earnings was to have a location where the machines had been set up for say 6 months minimum, accurate figures taken weekly, and then payrange installed and then accurate figures taken for another 6 months.

Some of the previous posters have said that their turnovers have increased, I wonder if that was graphed or not?

rd

Well, I have those historical numbers...but as you can see from the graph it wasn't steady enough before PayRange came onto the scene. Maybe there is someone out there who had consistent numbers...or at least numbers that were on a consistent increase or decrease.

What do you mean by "turnovers"?

More data: I've had 36 total different people use PayRange. Last week I got 20 unique users, and the average spend was $8.10.

basic business terms ...

Turnover = money that is in the register at the end of the day. (Or the coinbox in this case)

Profit = the part of your turnover that you are left with after everyone else holds out their hand.

rd

Don't want to sound like the creepy guy but....

I work for one of the major Phone company in Canada. My job is to provision service and solve problems for cell phone users.

Stories and facts I heard and saw in 20 years are crazy.

I never had and never will have a cell during my lifetime. That's a personal choice.

Just like everybody was smoking cigarettes in the 70..........

A smoker these days is a timebomb and not trending....... Time will tell us if in 20 years cell phone users will be the same.