Satomi Hustler Miracle Arrange ball

What do you get when you mix a Mystic Lines bingo machine with a Pachinko machine?

Mystic Lines card

Mizuho Pachinko circa 1971

You get the Hustler!

Satomi Sammy Miracle Arrange Ball

Hustler was produced by Satomi Co. Ltd.
I wish I knew the year it was produced. I suspect 1976, since all the assemblies are labeled 7610 and 7609... I could be wrong, dates in these machines are usually expressed in Shōwa era (1976 should be indicated as "S51".
There is little information about these games but from what I read so far about Arrange Balls, they occupied the equivalent ecological niche in Japan as Bingo machines in most parts of Canada / USA. Back of the shop hush hush dubious legality. But then there's this video on Youtube clearly showing Arrange balls in a Smart Ball parlor.

How do you play the Hustler?

First, insert Token:

16 balls are released to the ball shooting mechanism. Like an Arepachi (or unlike a traditional pachinko machine) the player cannot directly handle the balls. They can be seen behind a clear plastic chamber.

Shoot balls to achieve winning number combinations.

Balls land in pockets numbered 1 to 16, lighting corresponding numbers at the center of the backflash. Leftmost and rightmost alleys marked Re-play return balls to be shot again. Multiple balls can land in the same number pocket.

2 - 6 - 14 awards 1 token
1 - 5 - 11 - 15 awards 1 token
3 - 7 - 9 - 13 awards 2 tokens
4 - 8 - 10 - 12- 16 awards 3 tokens

When all the balls have been played, inserting another token or pressing red button on the left side of the game pays out tokens*

Features are awarded when balls go through award pockets. These pockets do not hold the ball. The ball goes through, tripping a micro switch.

Green Zone

Lights the Green Zone award. Hitting 1, 6 and 11 awards 1 token

Red Zone

Lights the Red Zone award. Hitting 3, 8, 9 and 16 awards 2 tokens

Double-Up

Instantly pays out 1 token and lights the double-up. Bottom 2 lines payout double indicated*. Does not apply to Red zone

Full Chance

Instantly pays out 1 token and lights the Double-up, Red Zone and Green Zone.

*This machine can pay out a maximum of five tokens (total) per play as indicated by the blue oval-ish label at the top of the machine.

As for repairs...
The payout mechanism was gummed up with old grease. It was completely disassembled, cleaned and re-lubed.
Edge connectors were cleaned
A few old Electrolytic Capacitors were changed on the Main board.

Control Board. Notice the sticker on the ROM

Dim or burnt lamps were changed. Replacement bulbs used are 2182. Although I find they run a bit hot. I do not keep the game on when not playing it as a precaution.

Everything inside was coated in nicotine. Balls would not release properly, coins would not even slide down the coin chute. Cleaned everything with 99% Isopropyl and Novus 2.

Back of door

Main control board and payout mechanism

The machine is for Japanese domestic market, which means it runs on 100VAC instead of the North american 120VAC standard. A large ceramic resistor was installed somewhere in the machine's turbid past. Crude, but it works. Converting angry pixies into heat.

OK. This is dodgy AF

There is a switch at the bottom right of the cabinet. If the front door assembly is opened mid play, the game will not pay out winning combinations as an anti-tampering feature.

For a condensed history of Pachinko, check out Pachinko Boy's history page

Wine and Bally Mystic Gate Bingo

Playing Mystic Gate.
Drinking Wine.
Winning 192 credits on a 3 in yellow.
Messing around with my phone camera.
La dolce vita.
The sweet life.
La grosse vie.

Bally Venice Bingo Pictures

Here's a bunch of Bally Venice Bingo pictures all in the same place. Venice is a pretty rare game and there are very few pictures of the internals online. All the pictures are from my own Venice. Enjoy!

Bally Mystic Gate bingo: Four in Red

4 in red on Mystic Gate.
240 credits.
Broke the 1000 credit barrier.

I can't decide which makes me happier:

Lining up the numbers.

OR

The fact the game counted up the credits properly.

Both!

F*** Yeah!

Bally Venice bingo

A shot of Venice when I was playing it the other day.

I collected the super double-up score right after taking the picture.

Bally Mystic Gate: It works and plays

It's been awhile since I last wrote about my Mystic Gate 20 hole bingo machine.

It's been working for some time now.

To get it working I had to:

Clean all the steppers, discs and wipers
Clean the mystic line units.
Clean the switch stacks of the shutter motor.
Clean the relays under the program unit that were covered in machine dirt and old oil.
Swapped all the 55 lamps for 47's and I changed all the 1464 lamps for the card.

Not much work really for a bingo machine. The game is relatively low mileage. The clutch washers were still lubricated and in good shape so I decided to leave them as is. After all, better is the enemy of good enough.

Mystic Gate is a pretty simple 20 hole bingo machine. No side game, no strange esoteric features. Juste the gate feature really. The game has a 40 coin limit. It doesnt have a proper mixer like the older bingos and I find that the setup with the Scrambler unit and the program unit takes away from the randomness of each spin cycle compared to my older games like Golden gate, Carnival Queen and surf club.

I had a few guests over in the last few weeks and they all find the Mystic Gate really fun.

I have to admit I also think the game is pretty fun despite being very simple. I think the gate is more of a gimmick. Sometimes it's useful sometimes, not so much.

How do you play the mystic lines?

Here is a fun game I played recently that nicely demonstrates how the mystic lines work.

In this game I had the A and B lines lit. The "Press buttons after 5th ball" and I had the "Any 4 stars score 300" that should read instead "All 4 stars score 300". I guess the Backglass Screening Department made a typo.

So After shooting my 5 balls I had a nice but useless grouping

11 in the blue
12 in the red
8 and 20 in the yellow and the 1 yellow star number

By itself this number combination was not a winner but by moving the A and B mystic lines...

I moved the A line up and down to have the 20 in the blue section.
I with the B mystic line, I switched the 2 left vertical columns of the card so that 8 and 1 are now in the blue section.

Lo and behold. 3 in blue. Luckily for me, the blue odds were all the way up and I scored a hefty 192 credits.

That's the beauty of the mystic lines.

The downside of the mystic lines is that the star numbers counts only as the 5th number in a color section. Two numbers in the same color section plus the star number of the same color pays nothing. Three numbers in the same color section plus the star number of the same color pays as a 3.

Mystic Gate does have the features "Any 3 stars score 25" and "All 4 stars score 300"

With one of those features lit, I guess the star numbers are a bit more useful.