Carnival games...:-(

[pishta]

Took my 8 year old to the local carnival and he swears that he can win an R/C Helicopter by beating the "Cover the smiley face" game there. "Oh really?" I ask. I made the game at home and he has yet to beat it and he's been trying to for 20 minutes, I even cheated a little by making the game easier. Object is to cover a yellow painted disk with smaller metal disks. Looks easy when "One tooth Carny" does it but...The game is made so you got about 2 mm of wiggle room dropping the disks from a height of 2 inches (a requirement). If you want to make your own to piss your kids off, scribe a circle onto a piece of paper with a radius of 3.6 inches or a diameter of 7.2 inches. Now use old CD's as your 5 markers. Drop them from a minimum of 2 inches to completely cover the area of the circle (CD spindle hole areas don't count). Here is the trick: if you make a center point mark, you got a fighting chance. Drop your first disk so the edge just covers the center point. now drop the remaining disks using the center point and the intersection of the previous disk edge and the circle edge as your 2 targets for your dropped disk edge. With a lot of luck, you'll drop 5 in an overlapping radial pattern with the narrowest of margins to completely cover the circle.

 

[krazykuda]

I was at the Detroit State Fair one year and noticed that the hoops for the basketball games where you have to shoot the free throws were actually oval shaped. Wider than they were deeper.. To throw off your depth perception so you keep missing....

 

[64DartGTinAZ]

Check the bit in here on the ring toss game - a little geometry explains it:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YakUzfyzuc"]1950s Live Television: Tricks of Carnival game conmen shown on 50s series "You Asked for It" - YouTube[/ame]

 

[cannucky]

Most carnival games are actually percentage games , their is a very steady ratio of winners and losers and they want that ratio hold , enough winners to walk around with prizes and lure the punters but enough losers to make a nice margin . Then of course there are the real sucker games , the Winner Every Time -pay a dollar win a nickle prize . I have had very good success in the past with " Star Dart " and "Ring a Bottle" games , the trick with Star Dart for me is to close my eyes for a couple of seconds and visualize just the colour the dart needs to be in not the distraction border that it can't touch , then relax, breath, open my eyes and throw right away without aiming . Ring a Bottle is a Plinko game gently spin the ring on a flat trajectory and watch it bounce off the bottle necks until one goes on . I stay away from "Race Games" and "Trade Up" games they're just bigger more expensive versions of "Winner Every Time ". Man I haven't been to a carnival in years LOL , haven't been told I can't play any more in the same amount of time either .

 

[pishta]

My brother in law won the big one on the "freethrow" game. Make one for a small prize, double or nothing for a larger prize. high arch swish both times. even suprised the carny! The rim was as oval as a Ford badge, and the netting behind them all messes with your depth perception. The one I cleaned up on was the 3 ball pool challenge. "Keep shooting until you miss" to sink all the balls and not scratch. break is a freebie. The felt is non existant on the tables and the balls just roll and roll, most scratch.

 

[Cruzin]

If I may add a little something to the "Cover The Smiley" face with the disks. I used to be an electronic tech for a firm that makes carnival games and for places like Chuck-E-Cheeses...etc back in the day. I was at a carnival one day and one of the old timers was performing the same technique to a group of kids. He made it look easy, but they could never get it to completely cover. After they left, he looked up at me and said: Hey, you wanna know the trick? I knew the guy quite well through the years, so I said yeah. He said pay attention to exactly what I do. I did and I could not get it. He said again, watch what I do!! Then he told me. He said the round circles are "NOT" perfectly circular. He said now watch again and watch my hands. I noticed he was rotating them in his hands. He said he rotates them in his hands until he can feel them line up just right. It takes alot of skill to learn the feel for it and to know the largest diameter area. I played around for days with a set at the shop and finally got to where I could do it fairly well. I actually measured them with a pair of verniers and they were "not" perfectly round.
Next time I went to a small fair from a different establishment, the guy handed me the "so called" round discs. I started rolling them around in my hands feeling for the high spots. The guy looked up at me and said; Hey Man...you can't play the game. I gave'em back to him and he asked who taught you to do that? I said an older carni. He looked me right in the eye and said, that's been an old trade secret for many many years.
Now, that was a long time ago. Maybe some places are legit and the plates are perfectly round. But, I have seen this personally.
That is not to say you cannot get lucky and win, but the odds are always against you at the carnivals.

 

[pishta]

ha, there you go! So you want the long side on the perimeter or toward the center? I may have to go back and win that Helo!

 

[Cruzin]

ha, there you go! So you want the long side on the perimeter or toward the center? I may have to go back and win that Helo!

There's 2 ways they used to have it. One for the long side of the perimeter and one towards the center. It depends how big the circle has been made. Even if you figure it out, it's still very tricky to be consistent and win all the time. Alot of variables to the game to win. If you did it all the time like the guy behind the counter, you would be as good as him too.....LOL
Another I have seen and tried is the "Pop The Balloon" with a dart. Looks simple enough. However, most of the time the balloons are under inflated and/or the darts are not very sharp )plus their flopping in the wind). I asked if I could use my own darts one time and a guy said he## no. It cracked me up and I laughed. The guy running the game did finally crack a grin cause I was laughing so hard. He knew that I knew.
It's still fun to go to a carnival no matter what. Albeit not the same as it was 30 years ago or so, it still entertaining.