Go Back 3 Spaces
I graduated during the great jobs drought of the mid-1990s and it took me the best part of a year to find a permanent job.

Luckily, however, I already had a decent income coming in.

Some of you may remember the Monopoly quiz machines that were pretty common in pubs back then. We had one installed in the student union bar during my last year and once a couple of us had worked out that it was possible to beat the machine, we were in business.

In short, and assuming you had a pretty good level of general knowledge to begin with, if you kept playing, you would eventually beat (and empty) the machine. And of course, over time you would gain an appreciation of which tactics worked and which didn't - buying Park Lane and then looking to hit the Community Chest past go for a 'Go Back 3 Spaces' and win a tenner being a favourite.

Luckily, there were a good few of these machines dotted around the city where I studied, but before too long I was also taking day trips to places like Bristol and Bath and cleaning up there.

Then, once I'd graduated, and moved back up to London to stay with my parents, I trawled the city looking for - and finding - new machines.

On a bad day, I'd make back what I put in (after allowing for food, drink, cigarettes etc). On a good day, I'd go home with my pockets stuffed with up to £200 in £1 coins (although usually I'd try to cash up in an off-licence or whatever), and having spent the day drinking beer in pubs. Result.

One time, having made a couple of hundred quid in the afternoon, I even decided to take the overnight train/ferry to Paris where Celtic were playing, just because I could. And they had a Monopoly machine on the ferry too, so I made even more money. Trips to the Kent Coast and up to Edinburgh also proved pretty lucrative.

Funny thing is, because the game was quiz-based, I don't think emptying the machine was seen in the same way by the staff of the pubs I went into as, say, someone going in and cleaning out the fruit machine. In fact, I became pretty friendly with staff in quite a few places I went into. I only ever got asked to leave one pub.

Of course, nothing that good lasts forever, and gradually the machines were either reprogrammed to be less generous, or disappeared altogether - the sinking feeling in my stomach when I went into a pub to see that the machine had gone told me that perhaps it was time to give it up, and so reluctantly I went into the 9-5 rat race.

It did provide me with easily the most embarrassing moment of my life, though.

I was in a pub in Bristol and had made some decent money but hadn't taken it out of the machine yet. And this particular day was the 40th anniversary of VE Day, which was being commemorated by a nationwide two-minute silence at something like 7pm.

Well, I lost track of time and instead of taking the money out of the machine ahead of the silence, I was still mid-game when the silence started. There was no option but to keep playing, trying to be as discreet as possible. Unfortunately, about halfway through, a Chance card gave me a cash prize - £2, £5, whatever - that took my winnings to over £30. At which point the machine spits out the cash automatically, whether you want it to or not.

Let me tell you, the sound of 30-odd pound coins being spat into a metal tray in a pub where everyone, but everyone, is observing a two-minute silence is absolutely deafening.

I was lucky not to get lynched.

Length? About 18 months making a decent living out of it.
(Capo, Sat 4 Apr 2009, 6:47, 6 replies)

Getting there at uni....
The monopoly game on the quiz machines nowadays is harder to win at, land on old kent road and you'll almost always end up with 50p at the end. The Dr Who game, however, has a VERY easy first round (especially for geeks, about half the question topics are science/technology based), which you can collect £1 after (for a 50p stake), so working there for a while can get a decent amount of cash, and pay for pints faster than you drink them. Playing with half of next year's LMH (Oxford) University Challenge team (of which I am a member, we go to the interviews to see if we will be on the telly in a month or so) helps too of course.
For the machines without Dr Who, Hex appeal is good if you are lucky with the rounds, barring that tetris is probably best, but you're not that likely to more than break even on either of those.
( Tedium Alduce me to interlow myself., Sat 4 Apr 2009, 13:08, closed)

Good luck with the Uni Challenge
I live just outside Oxford so if I see a bunch of students congregating round a Dr Who machine I'll know who it is!
(Capo, Sun 5 Apr 2009, 21:30, closed)

Quiz machines
when you've won a few quid, start asking shitty questions like "On which day of the week was so-and-so born? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday".

Do you know this stuff?

Edit: BTW, seeing as you're a tim, I am currently half way through a bottle of this fine vintage available at M&S:



I kid you not.
( stopmeandslapme Cometh the hour, cometh your mum, Sat 4 Apr 2009, 18:36, closed)

Perhaps Barry F could drown his sorrows with a bottle?
Mind you, green bottle and white label does give the hoops effect!

(Gers BTW is the region NW of Toulouse I think)

Oh, and the days of the week thing - no, the machine never got that low back then, the worst thing it did was 15 questions or so in it would throw you some kind of mathematical equation, scary to begin with but increasingly easy once you were expecting it and had enough time to at least get an approximate answer.
(Capo, Sun 5 Apr 2009, 21:32, closed)

Did a similar thing
at University- bugger all money, and tbh far too drunk and lazy to get a job (a situation that's now been rectified).

I managed to take a tenner out of the bank, spend £9.50 on Tesco's 8p noodles, some cheap cola and some other random crap and then- with the remaining 50p- fund about a week of nights out using just quiz machines and playing (and winning at) air hockey.
Made a small pile of money (couple of hundred quid in a week), drank most of it away, ended up putting £10 back into the bank.

If I'd had the sense to find other locations to take money off (rather than pissing off DUSA so they stopped keeping it properly stocked with coins) and to not have drunk it all away I could have pretty easily made more money than I'm currently working my ass off for.
( uberdeity Wondered why Owen Lars knew of the term "hell" on, Sun 5 Apr 2009, 1:26, closed)

"playing (and winning at) air hockey."
I feel a Color of Money-esque screenplay coming on...
(Capo, Sun 5 Apr 2009, 21:34, closed)