"Monetary" value of arcade prize tickets and skeeball talk

[Vinnie_Virginslayer]

Was just curious as to how much those little pink skee-ball prize tickets are worth when compared to the prizes available. I put the word “monetary” in quotation marks because once you leave the arcade without cashing your tickets, they practically become worthless until you return to claim you prize.

Here’s what I came up with.

I saw “NBA Shoot Out 2001” for Playstation 2 had a value of 25,000 points. Each ticket was worth 3 points at this arcade, so it would take 8,333 rickets to win this game.

The retail value of the game is $29.99 right now, so divide 29.99 by 8,333 and the value of each ticket is 35.989% of a cent, let’s round off to 0.0036 cents

Therefore, for every quarter you put into am arcade game, you would need to win 70 tickets to break even!!!

Even if you calculate the Playstation 2 game at what a lot of new games go for, $60, the formula works out to about .75 of a cent per ticket, or a much more satisfying 33 tix per skeeball game.

Some one needs to check my math, I’m horrible with decimals, but has anyone ever worked at one of these places and can shed some light on what it takes to actually come out ahead? I mean, a lot of those prizes really suck ass.

Also, which game give you the most bang for the buck? I’m horrible at skeeball, but I seem to be able to wins tons of tickets with the baseball game where you try and roll the quarter into a hole that says “triple”, “home run” etc. The secret is to roll the quarter into the closer “triple” hole.

I also seems to have a lot of luck with pop-ball poker!

[Tamex]

At Chuck E. Cheese, they tell you that each ticket is worth $0.01. In fact, if you see a prize that is 200 tickets, they will let you buy it for $2.00. (Whether or not the thing is actually worth $2 is debateable.) They don’t have any huge prizes like Playstation games, though, that I’ve seen. It does seem to be easier to win prizes there than the arcades I remember when I was a kid.

The game my husband and I like best is called “Shootin’ Hoops 2000”. You point this air-powered gun at these baskets and shoot balls at them. If the basket is lit, you get double points. The secret is to just aim the gun at the top-middle 40-point basket instead of chasing all over for the double points and losing your aim. This game is very touchy, though. Sometimes, the gun won’t shoot any balls along with its puffs of air. Sometimes, the machine will blink off and on in the middle of your game. Sometimes, it will spot you 30 points before you’ve even shot anything. And, there was one day where the machine would award you points if you got anywhere near a basket. The display would freeze at 990 points, but the machine would keep on spitting out tickets. The kid got a Barbie doll that day!