Fruit Machine Sites

Hit any amusement arcade, service station or cafe in the UK and you'll find at least half a dozen fruit machines propping up the prefabs.

Amazingly, the set-up and gameplay hasn’t changed that much over the years, although gaming law changes have increased or decreased the jackpots on the whim of whatever government is in power.

With the evolution of video slots and progressive jackpot games, the desire for basic fruit machines is diminishing. But there's still a soft spot for these very British slot machines, both live and online.

Current Fruit Machine Laws. Under the most recent UK gambling laws, most fruit machines come under B1, B2, B3 or C categories. Maximum stakes on Category C machines (usually found in amusement arcades or fairgrounds) are £1 per spin. B3 and B4 Category machines are usually found in members' clubs and carry maximum stakes of £2. Coin Operated Fruit Machine Gaming. Evoking memories of British seaside holidays and lost hours in the amusement arcade, coin-operated fruit machine gaming is popular among collectors on the lookout for new or vintage slots. With the introduction of the new £1 coin in 2017, there is a new market among people looking for updated classic gaming.

Fruit Machine Basics

While fruit machines first appeared in the US as AWP (Amusements with Prizes) took hold in casinos across the country, their migration to the UK was somewhat slower.

Major British firms like Barcrest began manufacturing their own fruit machines for supply across UK pubs and resorts in the 1960s, and while the machines were governed under the Gaming Act 1968, prize payouts remained in place until the laws were changed in the mid-2000s.

Generally played with three reels and a single payline (although some machines play diagonal lines to make 3-6 in total), fruit machines are mechanical slots operated by a button.

With the advent of better CPU technology, some developers began introducing bonus rounds, triggered by lighting up a sequence of symbols on a display above the reels. These bonus features generally follow a 'Trail Bonus' as you might see in online video slots, with a jackpot awarded for reaching the end of the trail.

Payouts and RTPs

Fruit machines are still popular today, although with the PRNG (Pseudo Random Number Generators) that govern modern video slots, players are becoming accustomed to a 'fairer' game with more random outcomes.

Payout percentages in fruit machines are generally much lower than their video slot counterparts, and certainly much lower than online slots.

Under UK law, there is no minimum payout percentage for a fruitie, although a lower limit of 70% is imposed. Now, compare that to the 90-98% payouts you get in an online slot and you can see the difference.

In addition, fruit machines can come in the form of 'compensated machines' (or 'Legacy gaming machines') which vary the chance of winning prizes based on the result of a previous game.

Current Fruit Machine Laws

Under the most recent UK gambling laws, most fruit machines come under B1, B2, B3 or C categories. Maximum stakes on Category C machines (usually found in amusement arcades or fairgrounds) are £1 per spin. B3 and B4 Category machines are usually found in members' clubs and carry maximum stakes of £2. However, the jackpots can rise, from £100 in a C machine to £500 in a B3 machine.

Under the Gambling Act 2005, pubs are allowed to have up to two fruit machines (low-stakes Category C or D) unless they've applied for a special licence.

Fruit Machine Features

As well as a 'Spin' button to kick the action off, many UK 'fruities' will feature certain additional touches.

PAYTABLE: Clearly displayed above the reels, the Paytable lists the various prize payouts for each winning combination.

HOLD: At random, the buttons below the three reels will flash, allowing the player to hold in place any number of reels they want for one further spin. It's an ideal feature for anyone wanting to hold bonus or jackpot symbols in place for another spin.

NUDGE: Also at random, an option will be triggered that allows players to move one or two reels up or down a spot to help form a winning combination.

HI-LO: Similar to the 'Gamble' function in an online slot, the 'Hi-Lo' feature requires you to guess whether the next number rolled on the display will be lower or higher than the one shown.

TRAIL BONUS: In many fruit machines with bonuses, a prize trail is worked towards by collecting consecutive wins on the reels. Players work their way around the trail picking up cash amounts, multipliers, or triggers to start a further trail bonus.

Advantages of Video Slots Over Fruit Machines

While fruit machines have their fans, despite the low payouts and suspect 'randomness', they can't really compete with online video slots. Let's take a look at why video slots trump the fruities every time:

The RTPs Are Higher: The Return to Player percentages (RTPs) will almost always be higher in a 5-reel online slot than a compensated fruit machine.

More Paylines, More Action: Video slots are able to handle more reels and more features due to their superior technology. That means anything from 10-1000 paylines and bonus features like free spins, and instant cash wins.

Truly Random RNGs: RNGs, or PRNGs (Pseudo Random Number Generators) allow for a much more random experience in video slots. Because of the software used, each spin is totally independent from the one before.

Bigger Jackpots: As video slots tend to take bigger stakes and can be linked, progressive jackpots can be formed which pool across casinos and online sites.

Future of the Fruities

Fruit Machine Movie

'Classic-style' fruit machines never went away online; indeed, many online casinos still feature 3-reel games in their lobbies to cater for the nostalgists.

Online 'fruit machines' feature the same 3-reel excitement of the old-school machines while doing away with the mechanical element and upping the stakes.

Fruit Machine Sites Free

Online there are no such limits to the ones imposed in pubs and amusement arcades, making the new generation of fruit machines more appealing to today's slots player.

The one main difference between Fruit Machines and standard Casino Slots is that the former can be beaten by a savvy player, and this is why these kinds of gaming machines are so very popular. However beating them is going to take lots of playing strategy and as such we will look at ways in which you can improve your chances of winning when playing them either online or in land based venues.

Fruit Machines are also known as AWPs (Amusement with Prizes).

Each Fruit Machine is going to pay in cycles, this is a predetermined number of games set by the designer of that particular game. The number of games which make up each cycle is a strictly guarded secret, however it is fair to say they will number the tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of spins.

A Fruit Machine will be set to payout a certain payout percentage per cycle it plays, and whilst land based venues such as amusement centres can and do offer very low payout percentages, often in the 72% range, online casinos will have their Fruities set to return a much higher payout percentage, with 94% and above not being uncommon.

At the moment, the best place to play online fruit machines is at LeoVegas.

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Forcing Fruit Machines To Payout

The reason for us mentioning these payout percentages is that this is where the Fruit Machines can often be manipulated into paying out. Allow us to explain how this is done:

Each playing cycle will have some parameters, these are the lowest payout percentage that the machine will be allowed to play at, and its aiming payout percentage which it is aiming to achieve at the end of each cycle.

During normal play the payout percentages can vary up and down with no dramatic effect of these payout percentages, however savvy players will play the Fruit Machine to lose, and by doing this they will force the game to payout, as by continually losing the payout percentage will drop to its lowest permitted payout percentage and will correct this and bring it back up by spinning in a series of large paying combinations or a series of jackpots.

If you are wondering how a player can play to lose, then how they do this is by various methods; Should, for example, a hold feature be offered, then they will hold all the symbols and thus no winning combinations can possibly spin in on that game.

Should a nudge feature be awarded then they will nudge in reel symbols which do not result in a winning combination being formed on the win line or win lines. Also, whenever they spin in a winning combination they will use the gamble feature and keep gambling the payouts value until they lose it.

Eventually the payout percentage drops so low that the Fruit Machine will have no option but to spin in the jackpot or a series of large winning payouts to bring its payout percentage back up to what it is aiming to payout.

Signs a Fruit Machine may be about to Pay

Often when a physical Fruit Machine is located in say a pub or club, you will get some customers of that particular venue recognising certain tell-tale signs that the Fruit Machine is about to play – Often, this is when they have watched another customer pump a lot of money into that machine and have spun in no large paying combinations.

These players will then jump on that machine and start playing it in the way mentioned above. However if the machine has been played a lot without paying out, then there are some further tell-tale signs that that machine may be about to pay, if a savvy player hasn’t been sat there watching it.

One of these signs is when a Fruit Machine is what is known as “backing“, this means that when a coin is inserted into it, instead of that coin filling up the payout hopper, the coins instead fall down the back of the machine into the cash buckets at the bottom of the machine, when this happens it is a sure sign that that machine hasn’t paid out recently as the payout hopper is full.

Another way to tell whether a fruit machine’s hopper is full is by getting hold of what is known as a refill key. This is a key which is inserted into the front of the machine and when turned it allows employees of that venue to refill the machine, should it have run out of money in its hopper and short-paid a player.

This allows the machine not to suffer any downtime as there is no need to call out an engineer to open up the machine and refill it, and by allowing employees to fill the machine this way a full audit trail is left, and negates the possibility of any employee helping themselves to the contents of the machine!

By inserting this key, which are all a standard type, and therefore readily available, the display on the machine will show how much money is currently held in the hopper, and as such this information is invaluable to a savvy Fruit Machine player, and if the hopper level is low that means they should avoid playing it as it will have recently paid out!

Fruit Machine Song

Online Fruit Machine Playing Tips

The one online casino software company who have the largest collection of these games is Microgaming housed by casinos such as 32 Red or LeoVegas and they have what is known as a Jackpot Thermometer type feature available with in any casino they power.

Fruit Machine Simulator

This is an on-screen indicator which lets you see in an instant whether a Fruit Machine has recently paid out, or not. This is a valuable tool for an online Fruit Machine player, as unlike at a land-based venue, when playing online Fruities you cannot see which machines have been played and haven’t paid out recently.

So one valuable Fruit Machine playing tip is to check this Jackpot Thermometer when you next log into any Microgaming-powered casino, as you will be able to see which machines may be due to payout recently and which ones already have!

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