Fruit Machine Refill Key Guide

Introduction

This guide gives a brief introduction to the use of a refill key. There’s no definitive list of machines and how they work. As they all vary working in very different ways. You may find that you even get variation from model in a manufacturers range to another.

In this guide I will attempt to put in a good starting position, knowing how to get yourself started using your key.

What does your refill key do?

A refill key is primarily used by fruit machine owners to refill the hoppers of their fruit machines. This in itself is not very helpful to you. However on a high percentage of machines they have the desired effect of showing you the current coin level, or how much the machine is short / paid out.

If the machine is short by a lot of money, it's quite likely that you're not going to make money playing it. You can therefore walk away and play later, having lost absolutely nothing.

The key itself does not increase the payout of the machine in anyway. However it does allow you to make an informed judgement on whether it's worth playing, before you waste too much of your hard earnt on it.

Which machines will this key work on?

The keys will work to some extent on all machines that have a refill key slot (unless the owner has disconnected the switch).

99% of them come out the factory with one fitted. The slot itself will be located on the front or the right hand side of the machine.

All you have to do is put the key in the slot then turn it 90 Degrees Clockwise. This activates the refill circuit of the machine.

The machine at this point may go predominantly dark. You then need to find the main LCD display on the machine. This is where all the information will be displayed.

At this point I wish to reemphasise that the machines will not all tell you how much they have in the hopper.

Some will come up refill coins but nothing else, no hopper level is shown. The key is doing what it should be, it’s activating the refill circuit. Unfortunately, these machine was designed not to show the hopper balance.

However back to the positive. Most AWP (Action With Prizes – Arcade machines) machines hold a float of £125, those with a note changer hold £250. Club Machines hold approximately £350.

Depending on the make and model of the machine the float level is shown in different ways. Some tell you how much is actually in the hopper, others tell you how much is required to fill it up.

Fig 1

The above is bell fruit machine (Club Deal Or No Deal) this shows that the machine is £39 short.

Fig 2

The above means that there is £95 in the hopper, if fitted with a £125 hopper this machine has a shortage of £30.

General Rules

Please note these are only general rules as every machine works differently. Individual models can even operate differently to other models in the same manufacturers range.

Bell Fruit Games group incorporating QPS and Mazooma. These tell you the balance of the hopper straight away. The display will be similar to fig 1 above. The machine shown in fig 1 above is “Club Deal or No Deal”. Most of the current “Deal or No Deal” pub/arcade machines work in the same way.

However Bell Fruits “Club Cops n Robbers” (Most variants) do not show the balance. You can Refill it, you can access Last Bank, Last Win, Last Note and Volume. But there is no hopper balance display.

This backs up what I said earlier about this guide only offering general guidelines.

The Barcrest Group incorporating Extreme Gaming, Maygay, Vivid and Impluse these will mostly come up with the hopper balance on the display straight away. Please note Some of the newer Barcrest group machines will only show the balance once after power on.

Older machines, which used tube instead of a hopper will not display the current coin level. With these however you can normally see the tubes behind the reels so you can tell if it’s paid out or not. These machines are however not very common place.