Has there ever been any grand arcade robberies?

morbidboy

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A couple of nights ago I was watching one of my favorite films, American Graphitti. There's a part where the Pharaohs (a local gang) jimmies all the pinball locks at a pool hall while the owner was been distracted and it made me curious. I know that every once and awhile someone breaks into a pinball or arcade machine, but has there ever been any quarter theft on a grand scale? Like a manager coming in the next day to open and find all their machines crowbared open and emptied out?
 
"...four million according to the Port Authority police, and five million according to the city..."

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heists

one of my favorite arcades, back in the day. some thugs hid in a closet and waited for the place to close. they had tools with them, the games had no lockbars. they ripped open every game overnite, stole all the quarters and let themselves out. the next day the arcade was closed forever. it was a real bummer for my friends and i.
remember being there when they took the games out with all the coin boxes ripped out. I remember there were a lot of cabarets cause it was a pretty small location.
 
You know if they were going to take all night and break into every machine they should have stolen the boards out of all the machines too. They would have been worth more than the money in the cash box was.

Kind of like how people will hold up a liquor store and walk out with the $90 they had in the register when a single master case (case of cartons) of cigarettes is worth around $1500 and isn't even that big.
 
In the early 80's my buddy bought a star castle from a lady who owned a arcade in stockton,ca. When he went to the arcade to buy the game he asked her why she was closing. She said her son was going to make a bank deposit as he was leaving the arcade they shot and killed her son. Sad story sucks to lose your life over a few quarters.
 
You know if they were going to take all night and break into every machine they should have stolen the boards out of all the machines too. They would have been worth more than the money in the cash box was.

Kind of like how people will hold up a liquor store and walk out with the $90 they had in the register when a single master case (case of cartons) of cigarettes is worth around $1500 and isn't even that big.

While this is technically true, it would be difficult to convert those parts into cash, particularly in the 1980s. Less hard if you're fencing liquor or smokes, but the market for video game PCBs would make that stuff tough to get rid of. Also, quarters don't have serial numbers on them.
 
This goes back at least ten years or so:

There was a mall here Tucson that was losing tenants left and right. The place was pretty much deserted for several years. Instead of opening an arcade, an op positioned his games throughout the mall's walkways and nooks and crannies. A few guys dressed up in matching uniforms and toting a few dollies showed up and stole the majority of them. No one questioned them. I would guess everyone assumed the op was bailing out as well. Not sure if they got caught.

That same mall also had a fake atm machine setup for quite awhile before the police figured out its sole purpose was to steal card numbers and passwords. Those guys were caught.
 
There's a artist by the name of Ron English that is known for parodies of fast food, alcohol, and cigarette billboards. When he does his "street art", he wears overalls with hat making him look like someone that works for the city (yeah if it was the 30's, but fits the stereotype of a city worker). He's never been hassled by the cops and when anyone asks (usually a little old lady) he says that he's been hired by the city to put up this "ugly" art installation. He comments how it has something to do with some shitty artist got some city grant and his just works for the city to put it up. They leave and he goes back to putting up his art.... oh that's some funny sh*t.

This goes back at least ten years or so:

There was a mall here Tucson that was losing tenants left and right. The place was pretty much deserted for several years. Instead of opening an arcade, an op positioned his games throughout the mall's walkways and nooks and crannies. A few guys dressed up in matching uniforms and toting a few dollies showed up and stole the majority of them. No one questioned them. I would guess everyone assumed the op was bailing out as well. Not sure if they got caught.

That same mall also had a fake atm machine setup for quite awhile before the police figured out its sole purpose was to steal card numbers and passwords. Those guys were caught.
 
I am sure route people have tons of storys. I remember Someone (I think yogi) told me back when he was operating games in 7-11 stores, someone drove a truck through the doors, dumped in the arcade games, and drove away (I think SFII and MK).
 
I was friends with the manager of the local Aladdin's Castle in the mid 90's. He was about 40-45 years old. He told me a story about a big arcade he worked at in California around '91 or '92.

He said that right when Street Fighter 2 came out, the arcade had 4 or 5 machines set up for it. He said that there was an Asian gang that ran a hustle of sorts. One night there was some 20 something year old working the floor by himself. A couple of smoking hot asian women came in and started flirting with this kid hard. He was over by the redemption counter talking to these women when a couple of guys slipped by and went to the area where the SF2 machines were. After about 20 minutes or so, the women said their goodbyes and left. When the attendant walked by the area where the SF2s were located he thought it was curious that the machines were turned off. He noticed they were unplugged. When he went to plug them back in he noticed the back doors were not on. When he looked inside he noticed that all of the pcbs were gone.

Apparently this happened quite a bit and the robbers could easily sell the pcbs to an unsuspecting op for a few hundred dollars less than new.

BTW morbid, you're not trying to plan some insurance thing are you? ;)
 
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I was at a guys house last week that had some boards and I asked him where he got them from. He told me a story about an arcade in central wisconsin that was apparently huge and that some kids had broken into it in the middle of the night and destroyed all the game including smashing every monitor in every game. He said that there was an insurance claim and that the boards and parts were sold off to whoever wanted them. He said he grabbed the ones that I was looking at...
 
I know of something going on at several (they will remain nameless) establishments, where individuals dressed as distributors would go into chain arcades implying they were there to rotate in new games, or haul hem back to the 'warehouse' for repair and once they were loaded on the truck they were never to be seen again!
 
Wow that's just evil!

I know of something going on at several (they will remain nameless) establishments, where individuals dressed as distributors would go into chain arcades implying they were there to rotate in new games, or haul hem back to the 'warehouse' for repair and once they were loaded on the truck they were never to be seen again!
 
Back when I worked at a bowling alley, we had a couple minor break ins. Nothing big. Someone broke into the Cyclone (redemption game) but they didn't get anything because they broke into one of the ticket doors instead of the cash box doors. Another time the Big Haul (another redemption game) got it. They loosened the wood around one of the glass tops and pried the glass up so they could take the quarters out of the dump trucks.

A buddy of mine told me a story of a tag team that would go in and one would distract the attendant while the other guy would break into the games and grab the quarters. Apparently it happened several times. The owner got tired of it and removed the coin boxes so that the next time when it happened the quarters spilled onto the floor and the guys were busted.
 
This makes me sad....on a number of levels. If anyone happens to know the deceased guy's name or has more details, I'd like to know. Obituary and or name of the arcade would be nice to know. Not out of any kind of morbid curiosity or anything. It just seems like we collectors, as a group, should be able to remember a fallen comrade. Even if our only connection is that we shared a similar interest. I'm sure there is a better way to say what I mean, but I hope you get what I'm trying to say.

In the early 80's my buddy bought a star castle from a lady who owned a arcade in stockton,ca. When he went to the arcade to buy the game he asked her why she was closing. She said her son was going to make a bank deposit as he was leaving the arcade they shot and killed her son. Sad story sucks to lose your life over a few quarters.
 
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