I see a bunch of kids with coat hangers lined up in front of your house!

Those who survived used rubber gloves.

I was out in Vegas back in the '80s, and I remember seeing kids in the lobby of one casino getting free games on the videogames by scuffing their shoes on the carpet to build up a static charge, then touching the cash box door. It seemed to work.

Of course, you find many plexiglass backglasses with a hole either neatly drilled or burned through directly on the replay window. This was another way to cheat the game by either stopping or ratcheting up the credit wheel.

Many woodrails have a metal strip on the inside edge of the cabinets to thwart this effort.

Funny you say that, Topcard. We used to do something similar with a "Top Card" machine at the college pub.

I've successfully captured a pinball with a magnet through the playfield glass. The trick is, you need a very strong magnet, and you can only do it on a game with a kickout hole or holes. When the ball drops into the hole, be ready with the magnet, and place it over the area where the ball will be kicked toward. Apparently it's airborne just enough to allow the magnet to grab it. Magnetic force increases or decreases exponentially in proportion to the distance, so that small reduction in distance while the ball is slightly airborne greatly increases it's attraction to the magnet; enough so that you can snag the ball. A magnet won't work on any bingo machines, because they use non-manetic, high carbon balls.