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Key Master Prizes


TWvend

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

I live in Ca and know of the Pelican Group. At alot of my places I have seen keymasters, but then they get removed, I never knew why, until now. My opinion keymasters DON'T do well in Ca legaly. 

 

I thought Pelican stopped using Keymasters and switched to PrizeLockers....am I wrong on this?  Was that just a northern Idaho thing?

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I live in CA too and there are plenty of Key Masters, many more than Prize Lockers. Everything seems to be in limbo right now in terms of regulation. I haven't seen any "busts" as these Keymasters have remained in place for years.

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These dummies putting cash in the keymasters will be the death of them . Or even worse dummy operators that snitch on the guys running cash in them ! T It sucks when a legit operator following the rules sees a guy doing something illegal but please be smart and don't be a snitch and bring attention to vending!!!!

As far as gambling laws go it's always at a local level and they are all written so vague so they can be twisted to suit any need they want to pick your machines up. As long as cranes, bulk machines with "leader item" , merchandisers etc are incognito we all make money. The public pretty much doesnt care and it's normally some jealous operator calling up state authorities that brings down the whole house of cards.

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Eventually those guys will get caught, you just have to be patient. Few years ago someone with quarter pushers and hundred dollar bills showed up in about 30 of our locations. Our numbers tanked for 18 months. Then one day they got busted! I never had to call the authorities. I was very tempted to call, but I never did. Batson actually called us outraged because they thought we were the ones who placed the pushers. Apparently another vendor assume it was ours and reported it to them and not the police. It makes my blood boil when someone with a key master comes into a busy buffet and offers $5000 slotting fee to kick out our machines, then they load it with iPads loui vuitton purses and cash.

I don't think jealous is the right word to describe a vendor that sees something like that going on. I think outraged! If only our industry had ano Association where people could report these abuses. Then the association could call the vendor and frighten them with legal action.

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Yeah I feel your pain and to be honest that was only reason I even got into coin pushers. I was perfectly happy with cranes until pushers started showing up in my locations and tanked the numbers as a pusher will kill the numbers on a crane in a small location.

I actually did call police and asked "aren't those machines illegal??" And police said they didn't have a problem with them so I started putting them out myself. Read the law and the way it was written in the vague language everything or nothing at all was legal . Sentences like " a device or machine that dispenses a prize or product when currency is inserted or does not dispense a product or prize upon insertion of currency." I'm like Wtf?:huh:? That could be anything

Then I learned the local guys really could care less unless it's worth some cash to them to go seize machines. If DA can get his name in paper and it's a sure bust that doesn't take much work then they will be all over it .

My point in all this .. You can be operating your machines legitimately say a keymaster, no cash money in prizes, but another guy in same area starts doing it illegal with hundred dollar bills all in his .. Now you get mad and call the sheriff and suddenly your machine gets grabbed along with his as it's same machine in their eyes. You go claim your machine because as far as you know you was legit with no hundred dollar bills in yours but YOU get arrested when you claim it and they have now reclassified your machine as a gambling device.

You show up to court scared to death cause lawyer said max penalty could be jail time and you notice that 40 machines where seized but only 2 of them where yours and you wonder where all those crooked operators are?? Why ain't they in court too so you will look good in front of judge because you was being the honest operator?? Nobody but you showed up or claimed ownership and you was guy trying to do right thing!!!

Boy this sucks! End up pleading to some less charge and paying hefty fine and you ask about all those crooked operators and are they gonna have to pay their part too?? They just look at you and say " you need to worry about you! Not everybody else!" And " that's between them and the state and this was between you and the state, never was this between all of us together."

So being outraged as you mention is true but I found out hard way that big brother don't give a sheet about doing the right thing, it's all about having a open shut case and getting your money. It isn't TV with intelligent investigators finding the bad guy and stakeouts etc. if they got someone to hang and get some money from they don't give a rats arse about all those other guys.

So my machines with all my labels and tax stickers and contact info all over them made me that fool. Those other guys with fake names and burner phones and no tax stickers etc just kept on making money! And people wonder why I hate the gov now ! Those guys still have machines all around me but I won't operate them in the state because of all that crap. I see guys making 6 figures a month on eight liners etc and pay zero taxes and nobody knows their name and when some local newbie guy puts machines out his name is in paper in six months as he was trying to do it legit! Vending is only biz in U.S. that's like this.

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  • 6 months later...

So I bought 4 keymaster's for $3500 from tokenstop.com about 5 months ago and they have worked pretty well so far. List price says like 4k but I called them and they gave me a discounted rate. They don't say Sega but they work flawlessy so whatever. Everytime I have a big winner of like a ps4 or something I've been making them take a picture holding it to prove they won and then I put the picture of them in the machine lol. Seems to increase business.  

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  • 2 weeks later...

So I bought 4 keymaster's for $3500 from tokenstop.com about 5 months ago and they have worked pretty well so far. List price says like 4k but I called them and they gave me a discounted rate. They don't say Sega but they work flawlessy so whatever. Everytime I have a big winner of like a ps4 or something I've been making them take a picture holding it to prove they won and then I put the picture of them in the machine lol. Seems to increase business.  

 

Are these the "Keymaster Direct" that dontigert is selling on ebay?

 

If so, they're inferior and made in china.  One way to spot them is they individually set the hooks instead of doing it by row.

 

edited to add:  This sounded harsher then I intended it.  If someone wants to run China knock offs that's totally their choice, I bought a generic motorcycle from China at a super discounted price.  The only issue I have is the people who are pretending to be sega, when they're not.  When the knock offs start hitting the used market (I love buying used) then guys like me are going to end up buying used machines off ebay only to find out they're a knock off and not the legit sega machines we thought.  I wish the generics were just 100% honest about being a generic...meaning different artwork/different name.

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Are these the "Keymaster Direct" that dontigert is selling on ebay?

If so, they're inferior and made in china. One way to spot them is they individually set the hooks instead of doing it by row.

edited to add: This sounded harsher then I intended it. If someone wants to run China knock offs that's totally their choice, I bought a generic motorcycle from China at a super discounted price. The only issue I have is the people who are pretending to be sega, when they're not. When the knock offs start hitting the used market (I love buying used) then guys like me are going to end up buying used machines off ebay only to find out they're a knock off and not the legit sega machines we thought. I wish the generics were just 100% honest about being a generic...meaning different artwork/different name.

If your worried about paying too much for a knock off because you think it's real. Then you need to learn how to spot the fakes.

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No I didn't buy from that guy. I bought these from tokenstop.com with a 12 month warranty and cheaper. The fakes i've seen don't say sega on them so thats how you can tell plus the sega ones seem to be bulkier. Sega ones say SEGA in big letters right on the front of the machine by the joy sticks plus on some stickers throughout the machine and the others just say key master. I recently bought a "cut the barber" game from them also that didn't have branding on it. 

 

The way I see it is I save 2k out the gate and so far seems to be a good product with a warranty. I bought 5 so far for roughly 18k. 5 sega would of cost me 28k. I'll take the 10k in savings to not have it say sega... My customers see prizes. They don't care if they're winning an xbox in something that says sega or not. They sell replacement parts also so unless after a year a part breaks that costs 2k to fix which i doubt considering theres just a couple pulleys and a motherboard I feel its a good investment. 

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I've not been involved with pirated amusements since the 80's when pirated video game consoles were sold here.  I would be careful buying anything new that you know is pirated, if the original manufacturer is still in business.  If the original patent holder gets their way in court the pirate sellers will be compelled to divulge their list of buyers and the machines can be confiscated when found.  This happened in the 80's and I'd be surprised if it won't happen again now.

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