Okay Jay, you've got to stop em right now.

Three of us used to do it in Norwich semi-professionally, but those days are long gone now.

Back in the old days, you used to be able to identify certain machines which you could get to pay on a regular basis, by, as Stu suggests, confusing the logic. Anyone watching would think you were crazy going lower than a 3 or higher than a 10 on a 12 number reel, but it was only to trip the machine and ignore the small wins offered.

Unfortunately, most of the manufacturers took these machines out of circulation once they knew they could be much more easily cracked, and replced them with much more regular machines. Now we'd ALWAYS beat two machines in particular because of what we knew, but the feeling never went away, and falling victim to the typical gambler's addiction, we thought we could always beat the odds on any machine. Then of course they put them up to 30p a play, and started taking notes.

The turning point for me was when I got involved with the 4 reel machines, and threw £300 into one with not a penny return in under 4 hours. On of my mates sat me down, and managed to make me see a little perspective - such as, when we were all in the pub, I'd be straight on the machine, whilst everyone else would be sat having a drink/chat, and generally being sociable.

Now I still gamble, but I'm much more mathematical about my odds, which is why I only play skill games in the casion against other players where I KNOW I have an edge. When the odds are stacked in the house's favour, you WILL lose over time.

Biggest problem with fruity players is they always think they can beat the laws of probability and chance. We had an edge over two machines only, so we tilted the odds in our favour, but in any other scenario, we were huge underdogs to even break even. Notice too how fruity players will ALWAYS tell you about how they won £100 on jackpot and three repeats, but will never tell you about how it took £80 in to get it, OR about the £60 they lost in the same machine the week before.

It is a mug's game nowadays, and just not worth the time or money to be invested. I've been at the real highs and lows of this particular form of gambling, and trust me, just leave em well alone. In a few months, you'll wonder why you wasted so much time for such little return. Keep at it, and you'll end up like that Fast Show character constantly advising the stranger to "hold the left reel" etc