I used to work for an old school operators, you have to understand there are a couple different mentalities. The new mentality is, keep the machine working, keep it nice, rotate it in, if a customer complains fix the problem, etc. That makes lots of money.

The old mentality was nothing like that. It was a completely different mindset. Many operators got into the mindset that arcade games were more reliable because they need very little upkeep. So they would never plan ahead to do preventative maintenance....

So the NEW mindset is, I'm going to go check out the game, I'm going to bring spare parts, I'm going to clean everything, change a couple rubbers, etc.

The OLD mindset was "Oh shit, this game's broke AGAIN???? Why did it break????".

So when that op got there, his mindset wasn't "If I clean this game, it'll make more money"... it was "The flipper rubber broke, and I don't have another one. I'll glue it back on for now".

He didn't glue it back on to save a dollar. He glued it back on because he didn't have a new one in his truck and wanted to keep the game working.

The "new" mentality would be, show up with an extra 15 minutes, bring extra parts just in case, change out that flipper rubber when it gets a nick in it before it breaks, clean the other rings, wipe down the playfield, play a game or two to make sure nothing's broke, etc.

Very hard for them to change the entire way they think about things.

And to the Original Poster, the reason they keep their location info secret is that same thing, it's an old school mentality. The "new" mentality that makes tons of money today is, advertise, hell try to get people to go to the Bowling alley YOURSELF, try to get the word out there, advertise on facebook, put yourself on pin map, etc. This makes tons of money.

The OLD mentality was "The bowling alley does lots of business, I put coin operated machines in there, and i'll get some money from their customers".

It's like the Coke Machine guy, he doesn't advertise where he has his coke machines.

This is just the old school way of doing it, it doesn't make money anymore but people are creatures of habit.