It’s a distributor thing. Back in the day the operator was supposed to buy from the local distributor if they were located within that distributors territory. If you stepped out on your local distributor and got a deal from Joe Dustributor in a neighboring territory, the way your local guy could find out is by checking the serial number of the game and he would know that it didn’t come through his chain. He could then call the factory and find out who did sell it to you and file a complaint. Either hold it against you for breaking the chain or have the factory go after the other distributor. At least that’s what I’ve heard from older ops previously when the question has come up.