Skeeball leagues

Ugh. Don't even start talking about this.

There are several in Austin, and I keep getting called out to adjust switches because every 10th game one ball might score 10-pts more or less than it should. The I have to explain to them how that particular ball is too small, has a big chunk missing out of it that sometimes aligns with the switch and doesn't trigger it, etc.

One league is up to 6 machines - 4 in a bar here in town and 2 in another bar about an hour-and-a-half away. They bought two off of Ebay in hopes of getting cheap ones and they turned up looking like shit. No computers and they looked like they'd been outside for a couple years. I ended up having to replace wood, cork carpet, computers, corroded switches and displays, etc. Took forever. Then I had to install bill acceptors where the ticket dispensers go (where the space is too narrow to mount one), and hook it all up.

I hate skeeball machines now.


On the plus side - they must make tons of money doing this. They have 3-person teams and each person plays 10-games in a night. Games are priced at $1 per game, so that's $30 per team. They currently have about 120 teams here (2 nights/week), and about 50 teams in the other place (1 night/wk). Matches are held every week, so that comes to $5100 per week! They do four 8-week seasons, so that's $163,200 per year! Even considering the split with the bar, minus the expenses on purchasing the machines (they spend about $2500-3000 for each), plus the trophies and prizes they give out each night and at the end of playoffs (not sure if there are cash prizes), they still must be making a pretty good profit.... :eek:
 
All good as long as the machines are well kept and they keep the corner pockets.
 
Back
Top Bottom