After taming the machines and winning for a few years with a workman-like attitude, I decided to move away to be closer to my family. Although the bingo games were an important part of my life, my daily routine, I was beginning to think that maybe I wasn’t tracking to be a responsible, contributing, educated adult. I was 21 years old at this point. I needed a change, as young people often do. So I sucked it up, bid adieu to the gang, and packed my stuff to go live with my parents half way across the country. I was resolved to finish school and get on with a respectable career.

 

My parents were living in Baltimore, Maryland.

 

So much for the plans.

 

If I had known what was in store for me as I drove from Colorado to Maryland in an old beater Chevy Nova with a U-Haul full of crap on a hitch, I would have been too excited to stop to eat, much less sleep. I limped that old crate into town, settled in with the folks, and found myself naturally searching for the nearest tavern or pool hall. What I found was Nirvana.

 

It was maybe a mile or two from my sister’s place, and when I walked in there I couldn’t believe my eyes. Two long rows of bingo machines against opposite walls. Maybe 20 machines in one location! A Beach Time on one end, a County Fair on the other. Can-Can, Silver Sails, Lido, Laguna Beach, Carnival Queen, even a Bounty! I’d never even heard of most of these machines, much less played them. I did what any self-respecting young man determined to make a name for himself would have done.

 

I bought a bag of nickels for five bucks.

 

I looked around and decided on the Can-Can. Who knows why? Probably because no one was around it and I wanted my privacy while I got the lay of the land. It didn’t take long to figure out that this machine was really different from anything I had encountered in Colorado.

 

The legs were reinforced with beams running from the front to the back. The lockdown bar wasn’t the wood I was used to – it was all metal; angular, with sharp edges ready to counter-punch with a violence of its own. The incline was steeper, too.

 

I felt not unlike the ballplayer brought up from double-A to the majors: happy to be at the Show, but insecure in the abilities I had spent so much time mastering. Could I play at this level and succeed? I lost that session, something that never, ever happened to me. I went home and obsessed about what transpired. I don’t think I slept a wink. Only one way to solve the problem – jump right back into the confusion with more nickels.

 

The next morning, I showed up at the “Cue Club” and settled down in front of the Can-Can. As I started to get used to the surroundings, the atmosphere, and the game itself, I began to feel as though I was regaining my form. The machine had the left-side roll I always looked for. The realization hit me that I could smack these machines even harder than the ones in Colorado without tilting, as long as I didn’t mind the pain. I was getting used to the faster pace caused by the steeper slope of the playfield. My return wasn’t what it had been, but I was winning. Struggling, working harder than I ever had to beat a machine, and getting the best of it. My naivete shrouded the reality of the little world around me, and I left in the late afternoon confident that Maryland might be good to me after all.

 

Oh, boy. I paid tuition for a higher education in the next few months, but that money didn’t go to the University of Maryland. What I failed to realize, and what I paid to learn, was that the whole pinball scene was different from what I was used to. Not just the way the machines were set. Everything.

 

I made my pilgrimage the next day, and by now the counter man knew me well enough to feel comfortable I was no threat for heat. I asked him if he would pay off any games I managed to win, and he agreed. I was in business!

 

The immediate problem I had to deal with was the fact that these were nickel machines. I was used to playing primarily dimes. This, taken in combination with the relative difficulty of the play, meant I wouldn’t be able to make any real money with my one-coin-at-a-time strategy. I decided to double up on the blue button and give away a few points. I mean, I’d rather have a return on investment of 25% at a dime than 30% at a nickel any day. So that was the deal, and I managed to cash out a few times, testing and playing many of the machines in the joint. I went back for another cash, and the guy said, “I’ve been watching you. I know what you’re doing.”

 

Gee, I thought we were friends.

 

You would’ve thought I was breaking the law.

 

Since no one came running over to tell me to lay off the whack, I assumed he meant the two-coin grind style wasn’t going over too well. I guess it didn’t add to his pleasure when I was cashing more than I was putting in. Whatever, I knew the good ol’ boy, relaxed game I was used to wouldn’t work here. I figured I better get out of there and regroup again. As I walked out the door, the guy cheerily said, “Take care, now!” Oh, brother.

 

Over the next couple of days, I was delighted to discover that Baltimore had a lot more culture to offer than that pool hall. Yup, there were a lot of other pool halls, and saloons, too. And they all had bingos running.

 

I bopped around here and there, looking for the ambiance, checking out the clientele, testing the proprietors, trying to find somewhere to settle in. I learned plenty about the playing the bingos Maryland-style during this period of time.

 

First of all, no one was going to be too happy about the small stakes game I was used to playing. The reaction I got in that first place wasn’t an anomaly at all, except most of the people working the counters were really pretty good folk. They weren’t blatantly rude when I did this, but I never felt welcomed anywhere.

 

Second, there was a core group of players I kept seeing over and over again, all over the place. A diverse group it was, too. Businessmen, students, punks, thieves. Every group was somehow represented – except women.

 

Finally, I kept seeing the same tech working on the machines. In North Baltimore, Pikesville, Cockeysville, Parkville, Towson. Hmm…some operation was running these machines all over town. It dawned on me that even though there were plenty of places to play, I could get eighty-sixed out of one and risk making the black book everywhere. I needed to make sure that nothing I did attracted enough attention or caused enough grief to get me cut out. I began to think that if I were to win the kind of money I made in Denver, if I won consistently anywhere, I might be out of luck.

 

The solution to this problem was actually very simple, but painful. I turned my back on the faith in which I was brought up. I started playing for the features, the odds bumps, the big scores. I was skilled enough by now to do much better at this from the very beginning than I ever did in high school, when I regularly lost. I knew enough about controlling the roll of the ball, and the relationship of the playfield to the backglass, that after I began doing this I thought I might have a fighting chance.  I wasn’t drawing any attention to myself; I was pumping nickels just like everyone else. And the places were so loud and rowdy, my banging style never turned any heads. When people heard the noise, they probably thought I was just frustrated from losing – there were a lot of hotheads around.

 

Well, as I said, my tuition was expensive. What I failed to understand from the get-go was that highly developed physical skills weren’t enough to beat the machines if you were gambling. I was making a lot of the same mistakes I made when I was in high school again, but my ego would not allow me to admit to myself what was happening. I started losing rather consistently. Finally, I just had to face the facts.

 

I took a step back from the whole situation and inventoried my skill set. Where was I strong? More important, where were my deficiencies? Was there a way to make this work?

 

The biggest problem I had was a locked mindset. Every bingo player has seen the guy who says, “I’m taking $1.00 shots”. And, by Gawd, that’s exactly what he does. Every time. Well, I may not have been quite so rigid as that, but it wasn’t so far off. I realized that I just wasn’t gambling very well. It didn’t make sense to put 20 coins in to get 64 odds in one or two colors. Sometimes not even that. If the features lit, maybe the odds won’t move, maybe they will.

 

When did I make money? I assessed what situations were profitable for me, and decided to capitalize on them. Here’s what I came up with.

 

The “magic square” games just didn’t offer enough opportunity to make a decent profit. I always seemed to end up a loser. Jamming money through these things wouldn’t create enough situations to win. This included games like Key West, Beach Time, Show Time, and Cypress Gardens. By this time, the “magic line” games were pretty much a thing of the past, and weren’t even an option. The old style like the Big Time I played in Denver was gone.

 

The 20 hole machines were too tough from a mathematical standpoint to mess with. I was a good player, but not nearly good enough to give away 13 points in the percentages and expect to come out ahead. And I didn’t. So cross that option off the list.

 

That left the “magic screens”. Games like Sea Island, County Fair, Circus Queen, Golden Gate, Bikini and Bounty. These were the games I seemed to do better on. I decided this was where my concentration should be focused. Money was coming from “OK” scores and the “2-in-blue” feature. Just lighting ABCD features wasn’t enough. It cost too much to buy the features in relationship to the money coming back. Pure and simple, a dumb gamble.

 

 

The OK was a different story. Here was a chance to make significant money without spending tons. I found the pick-a-play games with the OK feature offered a better chance at quicker returns than single-button OK games. Given the choice, why would anyone in their right mind play the red button for single green odds jumps after the OK is lit, when the blue will dispense double-jumps and no chance of additional features? A better game for a cheaper price! (In fact, all the old-time players can well remember people “cutting off the screens” on the single button games so the odds would keep jumping. Pick-a-play made that scheme irrelevant.)

 

I concentrated on Roller Derby, Silver Sails, Bikini, Bounty and Can-Can. If I had found a Lido, Circus Queen or a Golden Gate with a left side roll, that would have worked for me. But beggars can’t be choosers.

.

So why is the left side of the machine so important once again? Well, there are two positions the screen can show winning Orange numbers. Depending upon the location of the screen, this section has either four or five numbers to shoot. The first includes the 9, 4, 25 and 6. The second is made up of the 1, 19, 24, 23 and 6.

 

Obviously, it’s easier to hit two numbers out of five than two of four. Not only that, it turns out that the numbers in the orange five are easier to hit. That’s the section to target.

 

If you know how the playfield is laid out, you’ll notice that three of the five numbers in this section are located on the far left of their respective rows – the 1, the 19, and the 23. The 24 is on the bottom of the board in the middle, so any shot coming to the bottom “through the numbers” will give a great chance of landing there. Only the 6 is out of the way of the planned shot. I always figured it was there to save a lousy serve.

 

In my previous ramble, I talked a lot about practicing until hitting the 1 was almost automatic on a Big Time machine. The same perseverance paid off on the OK games, too. Since the 1 was part of the orange set, hitting it consistently was imperative. Once that’s done, it’s a relatively easy matter to play for the 1 again and just let the ball drop down the left side, past the 8 and 14 and on down to the 19, 23 and 24.

 

With the insane hours of practice I’d put in and the left side bias to help, I was able to hit the qualifying game (2 in the orange) a high percentage of the time. So the trick really was getting it lit without spending a lot of money in the process. How?

 

I reverted back to a quasi-conservative game plan. I played the red button exclusively until achieving 8/24/96 odds. (Red, yellow and green jump in tandem until then.) If the OK lit on any of those spins, I would switch exclusively to the blue button for odds moves. If nothing was lit, or just “ABCD” screens were active, I played the green button for features exclusively. If the OK lit, I would switch to the blue again. If the “EF” lit I’d stop and play for the blue section - more on that later. If nothing happened within 7 or 8 coins, I’d stop and play.

 

This method guaranteed I would only be spending money when it could pay off with a decent follow-on game with the OK winner. The green odds control the value of the “red-letter” game won with two in the orange section. Here’s the guaranteed games with green odds at 8, 16 and 32 respectively.

 

“8 Odds” Scores advance to Red 64/144/300, Yellow 16/50/96, Green 8/24/96. Magic Screen advances to D.

 

“16 Odds” Scores advance to Red 32/96/200, Yellow 64/144/300, Green 16/50/96. Red Super Section Lights. Magic Screen advances to D. Red Rollover Lights.

 

“32 Odds” Scores advance to Red 64/144/300, Yellow 64/144/300, Green 32/96/200. Yellow Super Section Lights. Magic Screen advances to D. Before 5^th Ball Lights.

 

The real opportunity to score substantially starts when the green odds are at 32. This game gives ABCD screens, Before 5^th, Red Rollover, red and yellow odds at 64, green odds at 32, and the Yellow Super Section.

 

So, once the OK game lit, I would play the blue button to try to get the green odds to move to 32. Sometimes, it would happen right away. The ultimate would be the 32 odds OK game on a bet of 4 nickels. At any rate, I would be willing to push 15 to 20 more coins through the chute to get this to happen. It usually did, especially if the screens weren’t active. If it didn’t, I took what I had and made the best of it.

 

The Yellow Super Section was the key to the big wins, and that’s why the 32 odds were so important. At the “D” screen position, the Yellow numbers are 1, 19, 24, 2, and 11.

 

Not to sound like a broken record, but there’s that old number 1 again. I explained how to make the 2 using a slam shot in a previous essay. The 19 and the 24 are there for the taking – we already solved them when we talked about the OK qualifier. The 11 is the only number out of the way. I would never intentionally try to put the ball in that hole, because missing it meant coming to the bottom through the numbers and generally out of position to hit the 19, a much easier mark.

 

The super section means 2 numbers score as 3, 3 score as 4, and 4 score as 5. Achieving at least 2 numbers in this section was almost automatic, and that awarded 64 games. A three number combination wasn’t difficult at all, with a payoff of 144. Even the four number hit for 300 games happened fairly regularly. These large wins more than made up for the smaller losses and pushed me back to the plus side again.

 

I would not press past 32 odds in the green on the OK game itself unless I was playing an extremely loose machine. Although the yellow odds increase to 120/240/450, it seemed to me that the cost of the odds jump rarely justified the additional potential winnings. And even though the guaranteed game gave magic screen position “E” for a bit more flexibility of choice, all decisions had to be made before shooting the fourth ball. That’s right, no rollover, no “before fifth”. This precluded scoring in multiple colors with a vertical “in-line” score, since the set position had to be decided before replays could be racked. I hit the 1-19-24 combination often before the fifth ball, and collected 32 games on the green, 64 on the red, and 144 in the yellow super section. That adds up to 240 games, exactly what the three in the yellow super would pay at the 64 odds OK game.

 

Earlier, I indicated that if the “EF” portion of the magic screens lit, I would stop and shoot for the blue section. That’s a three number section which appears at screen position “F”. Simply make the 13, 17 and 20 and you have a significant win. Get the “G” lit, and 13, 16 and 21 is a winner. When Bally first introduced this feature, three in the blue paid as green five. Beginning with the Circus Queen, and on all of the games I played regularly, this winner paid a minimum of 300 games. There was no longer a need to get the green odds to advance. The lower odds meant playing for extra balls made some financial sense in certain instances, since the machine will submit them much more regularly.

 

Actually, making those three numbers was a lot more difficult than I’m making it sound. First of all, the 13 was a must. That’s on the right side of the playfield, in the second row. The left-side roll bias I loved could become a curse at times, but every machine generally had a way to properly play for the number. Usually, this was to serve the ball gently to hit the rebound rubber on the left just hard enough to drop through the right side – optimally through the 6 and 7, off of the post above the 12 and directly into the 13.

 

Okay, so we’ve solved the 13. The 20 and 21 weren’t really a problem. Any mediocre player could hit them with relative consistency. That meant the big key to the whole thing was the 17 at “F” and 16 at “G”. Neither of these numbers are a snap. In fact, the 16 was the most difficult number simply because of its location – right smack dab in the middle of the playfield. Anyway, shaking and smacking never scared me much, and those numbers fell often enough to make this proposition profitable. I reckon I hit it about once every twenty tries, including extra balls. Not great, but if you only put in around eleven coins, that means you’re betting 220 to win 300. Not a bad return on investment at all.

 

So that’s basically how I ended up playing the machines in Maryland, and how I ended up a winner there, too. Even with the machines set tough.

 

But what about the owners, the operators, the counter men? How did I avoid getting kicked out once I started to win?

 

Well, a couple of things. First of all, I learned to buy more coins than I needed. Make sense? After all, everyone was banging coins. I figured, why not just get more nickels than I needed? I can always put them in my pocket and leave. No one was the wiser. Perception is everything.

 

Second, I made a point to ingratiate myself to the people who owned and ran the pool halls and the machines themselves. I wanted to make it very difficult for them to eliminate me from the premises, so I became very friendly with them. I would go to bars and restaurants with them. We would NEVER discuss the bingos.

 

Once we got to know each other personally, I believe these people looked the other way to some extent as I won. It was somewhat economically sensible, as I became a shill. Other players would see what I was doing, but couldn’t duplicate it. It caused more money to go through the chutes. The money I was winning was offset with other players’ losses. And besides, they really didn’t know exactly how much I was winning, anyway, since I was stashing nickels.

 

What a great time! I just got an e-mail today from my main bingo buddy back in Baltimore from 26 years ago. Amazing. That’s what it was all about – a carefree youth, good times, good friends, and a little chicanery to boot!

 

Wish you could’ve been there,

 

 

 

 

_ Me too Brother _

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Created on 4/22/2003 _ Last update 10/23/2016

  Almost a year later to the day since Phil last wrote us, well I don’t know about the rest of you but I am willing to wait another year for an article like this. Great job Phil, I can’t thank you enough for your time and willingness to share such wonderful memories and history in the depth that you have.

Thank you very very much!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Click here - Phil would love to hear your comments and feedback!

Phil Bogema's Email Address

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LINKS

http://danny.cdyn.com/pinballnumbersrpt1967.pdf