I tried to profit at an arcade

What a dumb idea

As a British person who's never been to America, I'm very grateful for you sharing your tactics on winning that one specific machine in Orlando Florida.

My local arcade used to have an electric chair (game?) that gave you tickets for as long as you could hold on while it shocked you. I used to spend all of my tokens there because it was a sure fire way to get tickets, but in retrospect it meant that I often spent my entire arcade experience getting moderately tortured just so I could win "prizes" I could get from a dollar store, all for the low price of like 50 bucks.

Being in a loveless marriage must have been really difficult for you guys all these years, I'm glad you were finally able to earn you wife's love by winning a game that involves dropping balls into cups. Remember folks you're only worth the amount of love directly proportional to you're mastery of an inane skill.

When I was a kid I won the jackpot on this one game at an arcade and I won like 5,000 tickets or something. I used them to buy this inflatable fighter jet that was like 2 feet long and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. When I got home, I went to inflate it using my dad's industrial air compressor but it was so powerful that the inflatable jet immediately just exploded.

My in-laws got the exact same red hot dog toaster.. I always wondered where they got it from.. Now I know, they must've been arcade masters back in the day.

In today's episode: Drew narrowly avoids a gambling addiction

My husband took our 8 year old daughter to an arcade for the first time a week ago (she had just turned 6 when the pandemic began so we lost a lot of time taking her places in that time span.) Anyway, he called me from the arcade freaking out because she asked to play a claw machine, and she played 8 times in a row and won every single time. She does suck at literally every single other arcade game, but on claw machines, she is gold.

I used to work at a lesser known arcade, and there was a time when one of our sister locations went out of business and all their inventory went to us. So many plushies everywhere, the back areas were so full. So the technicians, in an effort to get rid of the inventory faster, made the claw machine games easy to win. One night, there were two vloggers that came in and played the claw games and left with two big garbage bags full of toys and freakin the fuck out. And I am so happy for them for that lucky stroke

imagining Drew in a bad fake moustache comically sneaking into the arcade to play the ball game and having a group of security guards carrying him out kicking and screaming

Most modern arcades are just mini casinos targeted at children. Even those "skill" games like the claw are rigged by have the claw loosely grip while others blatantly give the illusion of skill required. The all have a garenteed payout ensuring the house always wins. I worked for company serviced and repaired those machines.

Imagine being the arcade worker and having to watch the road work guy come in for three days straight, go apeshit on one single machine, buy the most obscure prizes, and never return again

Amanda is so funny. And it’s so nice of her to feature a new budding comedian like drew Gooden on her channel.

Once I went in with 5 dollars.. played enough to score a ruler as the prize.. used it to sweep out under the machines and collect lost tokens. Balled out that day lolll

I live in Orlando and just got back from this exact arcade and there was a giant crowd of people around the machine all using the technique from this video of mashing the button 4 times following a slight pause. It was beautiful to watch

I used to work at an arcade. One of our Big Bass wheel games was broken where it couldn't auto spin, it could only be spun manually like when you play the game so everyone there exploited the hell out of it. Just inch the wheel onto the 1000 ticket jackpot and with the auto roller broken it can't roll for you since inching doesn't count as a roll. 1000 tickets per dollar. Easy peasy. I don't think they ever fixed it. It's been years. Ah good times.

I read the title as “I tried eliminating an elected official”, I was SO confused after 20 minutes

This channel has slowly become Drew attempting to systematically drive himself insane by trying experiements that nobody has asked him to do. And frankly, I'm loving every second of it.

Drew can literally make anything interesting. I can't believe I just watched a man play one single boring arcade game 100s of time xD

“I’m the worst at bowling” Me sweating thinking about the one time I through my ball and it jumped into the lane next to mine and got a gutter ball in their lane

About two weeks ago I went to an arcade for the first time in years as a slightly drunk continuation of birthday celebrations. They had a drop ball game and because of this video I absolutely killed it and took home a worm on a string and a boba tea soft toy.

I have to say, winning multiple jackpots doesn't hit as hard when the machine isn't spewing several yards of tickets that just pile up in front of the machine.

This guy is like if Ben Wyatt from Parks and Rec was a real person.

I love that there's no way to know what Drew's next video is going to be until he uploads it and its completely random. Drew Gooden supremacy.

New life goal… to become the Arcade King! 😂

Drew looks like if he never made a vine about a road work sign he could have very easily ended up a serial killer

i have that same hotdog machine.. it caught fire when i tried making hotdogs with it, near burned my house down. So they were exremely hot dogs.

This is exactly the type of thing everyone wished they could do but we don't so we watch Drew live our dreams instead

I once played a Big Haul Truckers game where you just rolled a token down a moving rail. If it landed onto a truck you got a small prize, if you hit a flag on the back and it dumps the truck, you get tickets based on how many coins drop. Anyways I got my token stuck and jammed the flag, so the whole machine dumped it’s entire wad of tickets, over 1000. It was fuckin’ stellar.

"I mean, I would pretty much be actively crashing the blue Marvel mug market by increasing the supply so much."- Drew Gooden the Wise He has 3 million subs on BRvid, so...

well shit, thats a hell of a mystery no one thought was a mystery and didnt even really need solving but damn if it didnt just get solved so nice work

This is exactly the type of thing everyone wished they could do but we don't so we watch Drew live our dreams instead

You make me laugh even when I feel like a black hole of shit. Your contribution to the world is priceless. Thank you.

The only time I've ever been to main event, I broke one of the machines, it kept perpetually counting tickets. And also one of the employees tried to argue with me about a prize that I chose, like not bcos it was hard for him to get it, he just had opinions about what I wanted to buy??? Like told me not to get crabby patty gummies bcos they were hard to chew.

okay so i just have to share an experience of mine with the ball drop game. when i was in the mall once a few years ago, my dad finally let us play in an arcade while we were at the mall. the ball drop game was nearby the entrance, and it looked like fun; i wanted to try it at least once. but, there was already someone there so i had to wait my turn. the only issue was, it didn't seem like the person playing was gonna leave anytime soon. the person was a grandma, maybe in her 50s. she was a fucking GOD at the game and almost always got all the balls into the cup thingy. she even had this like laundry basket by her side just catching all the tickets that she got from the game and it was FILLED TO THE FUCKING BRIM. THE TICKETS WERE EVEN ORGANIZED SO IT WASN'T LIKE THE TICKETS WERE JUST PILING ONTO EACH OTHER, MAKING IT LOOK LIKE THERE WAS MORE THAN THERE REALLY WAS. NO, IT WAS FIXED AND FOLDED, ALL PRIM AND PROPER. SHE EVEN REACHED THE CAP OF THE MAXIMUM PAYOUT, SO WHILE SHE WAS EARNING MORE TICKETS, THE MACHINE WAS OWING HER MORE AND MORE. oh my fucking god. i will never forget her.

When I was younger my sister had a Homer Simpson themed hotdog cooker and bun warmer(?) set that she either got from her birthday or won from the Easter Show. It was red and the boiler part in the middle had clear plastic, and there was like 4 or 6 metal or plastic poles to skewer the buns. I think we used it exactly once but it was perfect. My point is, hotdog-specific appliances are a necessity for every family.

My friends and I cheesed the "Deal or No Deal" machine at an arcade once. At the beginning of the game, the screen shows you the values of all the cases, and then plays a scrambling animation. Turns out this animation is actually how they mix up the cases (it's not just randomized with number generation afterwards for some reason), so we pulled out our phones and recorded the scramble in slow-motion. Then one person would play the game, stalling as long as they could, while the recorder would scrub through the video, following the biggest case. We could win the maximum amount of tickets every time with this method.

5:36 - The machines are designed to dispense physical tickets, and counts them one at a time. The electronic versions are retrofitted onto the machine, but the ticket sensor will still count them one at a time. There are faster implementations, but that costs more money for a more expensive conversion kit (one for each arcade), and you need every penny you can get when you operate an arcade populated with drunk people. It's called Dave & Busted for a reason.

I won a giant stuffed giraffe from an arcade when I was 15, my mom and sister worked there so I had a lot of time to get all the tickets I needed.

I’m glad you did this before I did on the same game. I wouldn’t have even made a video about it. Just do it to see if I could with sunk cost fallacy following me all the way to bankruptcy. I’ll say it if no one else will. You’re a hero. Thank you for your service.

I used to work at an arcade and I know from experience that every single arcade machine, even the ones based on "skill" like quickdrop, have settings for the owners to change to tilt the odds in their favor. It's all based on how scummy the owner is. I've been to a few arcades where doing the same strat that drew did just didn't work, because they lowered the time and it was actually impossible to win the jackpot. The one that Drew was playing seemed mostly skill-based, so the owner didn't change anything off default, which is good. Just remember that if you had any "near misses" when playing a skill-based arcade game, it's entirely likely that it wasn't your fault and it was literally impossible to win, even if you've gotten the jackpot before

That arcade worker must think Drew is the biggest incel on the planet coming in two days in the middle of the work day, absolutely killing it in a meaningless game, and then cashing out a hot dog toaster, man cave sign, and avengers mug.

I feel arcade toys that were an insane amount of tickets made way more sense in the 80s. For example, when my dad was a kid he’d spend his lunch money after school playing pac man at near by convenient store. If a kid happened to live close to an arcade this how they could spend their time if they had an allowance or something. They could then collect their tickets for awhile if they wanted something specific Now I’d imagine that most of that shit stays there until it starts to disintegrate

aww this gives me nostalgia. me and my current boyfriend went to an arcade one time and did nothing but use our tickets on an entire bag of bouncy balls, not quite a profit gain but in my heart it totally was

I absolutely kill it at pianokeys i get the highscore every time. I can fill the entire leaderboard. Its great Ill pick something good then give the rest of the tickets to whatever kid is behind me

Your mistake was expecting these machines not to be rigged EDIT: Dear God, he didn't use the hotdog toaster right. You have to open the buns, dude!!!

Imagine being the arcade worker and having to watch the road work guy come in for three days straight, go apeshit on one single machine, buy the most obscure prizes, and never return again

never forget when i had my 18th birthday party in that exact orlando arcade. all i won was the news that my band teacher had been arrested, oh and a sick guzzler helmet

Loved the video! I'm actually banned at my local arcade for profiting off of Pop the Lock, a 100% skill game that's almost I possible to rig. I grew up on rhythm games so my hand-eye coordination is pretty good. I'd go in about once a week and spend 100 bucks on a game card. 5 to 6 hours later I'd walk out with a couple game consoles and a lot of Bluetooth speakers. It was a lot of fun while it lasted

This is the skill I always wanted to learn. The ability to master the ball dropping game - 4 at a time at that one machine in Orlando, Florida. Thank you for providing me with such inspiration, Drew.

I don't know how or why, but every time my sister goes to an arcade she wins at least one jackpot, oftentimes multiple jackpots, and then comes home with some snazy prizes. Every. Single. Time. Sometimes it luck-based games, sometimes it is skill-based, but she doesn't seem to have a strategy or use skill!!! Whatever arcade it is, she always comes back with a fancy prize, usually something with blinky lights. If I knew her secret I'd share with with you, Drew, but I suspect it has to do with knowledge beyond my comprehension.

looks like Drew finally realised he can write off expenses on his taxes…

Man, Drew does the same financial math as the current administration!

The algorithm is so oddly specific that this game was already my favourite to play at the arcade here (in New Zealand..) and now I actually know how I’ve been absolutely decimating at it

I remember doing one of those spin wheels and I got the jackpot like.. twice. Ended up coming home with a stuffed bear that was about two times the size of child me. This was an outing between my dad and I while my mom was on vacation. Her one rule was no stuffed animals She wasn't too happy about that one

I went to the crustiest dustiest arcade in utah the other day and they had one of these. It didn't work but it's the thought that counts.

I cannot imagine the employees reaction to seeing this grown man come to the arcade three days in a row, to play the same game, to buy the weirdest prizes. I hope Drew is a story spread amongst the employees for years to come

not gonna lie, this video taught me that Main Event is a chain business. i literally thought main event was so lame that someone in my town owned it

I work for a large arcade company in Orlando I service most of the arcades on I-drive. The reason it takes so long is that there has to be a distinct electric pulse for each ticket. The card reader detects each pulse. The games are not made for the card readers they are made for paper ticket dispensers. Also the maximum payout isn’t a deliberate thing it’s programmed by default into the inter card swiper. The people who set up the system were just to lazy to bother to change the limit.

I can’t believe you made arcade content. This feels like it was specifically for me from the universe. I love arcades. This is my niche. Thank you

Went to a Dave and busters on a half off Wednesday with my wife a couple years back. The ski ball machine malfunctioned and gave jackpots on every single play, it was insane. Spent so much money that day. My wife would guard the machine while I put more money on the card. Somehow a 6 year old girl slipped through and won a jackpot of course. She told her mom but she was ignoring her on her phone, fucking sucker! I have a card with over 100,000 tickets sitting in my junk drawer. Really do need to start spending those.

It really slapped me in the face when Drew intro'd he went to a Main Event, which I worked at for multiple years.

Alternate title: "guy discovers all the scummy things arcades do"

full honesty i thought he was gonna try to profit from the perspective of an arcade owner and i was just like, oh well that shouldn't be too hard

drew u have no idea how excited i got when i heard the Bubbliane music, i was vibing a lil too hard

Imagine the main event employees watching him come in three days in a row and standing at the same machine for hours

Ah, Drew's doing a version of Kurtis' speed run video. Both their frustration is so amusing lmao

This is one of the funniest videos I've ever seen and also interesting in a Mythbusters sort of way. Great job!

me, a floridian, raptly listening to drew teach me how to win at this one specific machine in orlando so that i can impress all of my adult friends when we decide to go there

This video reminded me of the time when I was 18 & my fairly new girlfriend who was 22 managed the client relations/party planning department of a family fun center type of establishment. Somehow she would always come into possession of the leftover play cards whenever a party was thrown there & the client's had purchased too many cards than they ended up using. Apparently she had been stacking up those cards for a couple year's even well before her & I even met & she had just under ten grand worth which she just handed me one day. I may have been technically an adult on paper, but I was freaking stoked! So I invited like 5 of my equally immature friends & we went to town one day so hard that we ended up causing a scene & were getting odd looks from the staff, but I wasn't bothered as I was in my zone playing a similar game to the one you were playing in this video. By the end I bought every big prize they had, some even duplicates. The most expensive of which was this dope ass RC car, & a tactical survival device thingy that had a small TV, radio, flashlight, alarm siren, & a walkie talky that in the event of an emergency you could just wind up tp create the energy to power it up. All in all though the prizes all together were probably worth about $1,000, but like I said it took almost ten time's that worth of play card's, so luckily I didn't have to spend a dime though. Unfortunately though my girl at the time regretted giving me those because it seems that I ended up embarrassing her acting like a literal child in a candy store in front of her coworkers, but I really don't know what she expected me to do, at least I was dressed nice & looked good, so my impression couldn't have been all that bad, besides I could tell that they were just a bunch of dudes who didn't like me before even meeting me because I was dating their hot coworker, but I digress. Her & I lasted 4 more years after the fact so she apparently got over it, but that was one awesome day. The dude grabbing my prizes for me had to grap a latter & keys he was unfamiliar with as well, & most of my prizes had like a couple centimeters of dust on them.

i love how drews strayed from the format of "talk about bad content" and now he just fucks around

wtf, you call yourself a bad bowler. You were knocking a lot of pins down. As a kid I would regularly get 40-70

drew i'm pretty sure you're supposed to open the hotdog buns before putting them in the toaster

The hot dog toaster is like 30$ bucks on amazon LMAO

I work at an arcade, we have QuikDrop as well, and it's one of my favourites to hit jackpots on. Fun fact: the difficulty is adjustable, and ours is set slightly easier, so you have enough time to do 4 in every bucket, and only 2 in the last one (or 3 in the last 2). Our jackpot is typically set lower, though (starts at 200 after someone wins and increases with each play).

“I love you now” Never forget that this is Amanda’s world and we’re all just living in it

Hey man, if it makes you feel any better, I once had a bowling ball go into the other lane. Thankfully no one else was using that lane and I was with the boys, but it was still hella embarrassing.

I'm gonna be that person, but I just want it to be known somewhere that I tried signing up for Current last year when he had a similar promotion, and aside from the fact that I did not get $500 (and I don't care because I wasn't expecting to), I did not do anything with my Current card and I was immediately presented with an attempted fraud charge within the first week of my account existing. They tried to buy about $300 or so in children's playhouse stuff from a specific website??? I was alerted by the app and I just decided to close my account. There has to be a security hole somewhere, because I hadn't used my card or put my account information into anything else.

Love seeing the diversity in the vids recently, I think Drew could make anything entertaining honestly

Just got back from Orlando.. yeah they got rid of this machine. Thanks Drew.

If Drew never makes another video again, we know why 💰💰💰

When it does the unawarded tickets things you can tell the staff and they will manually load the tickets to your card. It has personally happened to me, twice now.

It's amazes me that even though this arcade is in Orlando Florida the local arcade here in Dunedin New Zealand has the exact same games. When he was showing the sort of tour of the games at the start he could have been in my local arcade. Do they just not make other games?

I love how this is something you could do with some math but Drew decided "Hmm... nah. Let me complicate this."

9:03 One time when I had one of those cards and I got like a thousand points and I was gonna get something and they told me those cards didn’t collect points and I was so pissed.

'You can't put a price on dopamine. So technically, you always profit.' - The gambler's coping mechanism.

9:54 This is the funniest part in my opinion 🤣

Drew: I know work has been crazy lately but I have something for you Drew 2 seconds later: that’s not for you

"Unawarded Tickets" made me violently angry

This video is pretty good! Love the creative idea

the fact that Drew and Amanda put their bowling names names as "Me" and "BimBim" (their cat) is hilarious to me

One time my dad spent 600$ trying to get a sparkly rubber ducky (:

20:38 "Remember, the value of a product is only what someone is willing to pay for it." The Subjective Theory of Value, in a nutshell.

I love watching drew gooden when I’m high cause i completely forget what happens in the video so I can watch it twice

you already know what is going to happen when the video is called "I TRIED to profit at an arcade", not "I profitted at an arcade"

For anyone wondering about the slow ticket payout. A majority of modern arcade machines are still built with paper tickets in mind. The swipers we use are a modification, not the intention behind most machines. Due to this, the machine lets off 'pulses' to output the paper tickets. When we splice into that line with a swiper harness, we are limited by the game's pulses. As an example, look at the Ticket Time machine showed a few times. Those ticket rings use an RFID system to payout to the swiper. That game was made for swipers, so it can payout 25 tickets per pulse, rather than 1. Meaning it's payouts only take mere seconds, even for large payouts. Hopefully, over time, the arcade business will evolve to favor this faster payout system, rather than the archaic paper-based payouts. Source: I'm the guy who repairs those machines.

I once went to main event for a school trip and got so many tickets on my card that I actually put the machine I was playing out of order somehow. My friend who was with me because social anxiety just thought I was massively lucky when in reality I work at an arcade and know how to get the jackpot nearly every time

I Loved this video

drew you gotta memorize the order of scores on the big bass pro shop wheel to calculate your pulling pressure on the handle, noob.

I work at main event and once he said “Time Card” I knew the disappointment was coming