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To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (41612)	11/12/1999 12:56:00 PM
From: jhild	Respond to of 71178

Pachinko uses small ball bearings about 3/8ths of an inch. You flip them up a chute into an array of brass nails that they then fall through bouncing by chance into little prize slots that then pay off in more ball bearings. The bearings are stamped with Japanese writing presumably to cut down on counterfeiting as it is a form of gambling. Interestingly I figure that one bought them at the Pachinko parlor for about what they cost to manufacture. My machine still works and I have updated it with a battery and worked out the wiring so the lights all blink as they should in operation. The standard payoff for hitting a prize slot is 15:1 but some prize slots open up like flowers to more easily catch a falling ball. While most of it is luck, I have found there is some skill required to control where the ball is flipped to the top of the tree of nails. I have also opened some of the prize slots a nudge wider so payoffs are more plentiful, and less skilled players can be easily amused wracking up huge winnings.