Quiz Machines: Where did it all go wrong?

Once a common sight in pubs throughout the land, you’d be hard-pressed to find one now, prompting us to have a stab at the question…

January 2020; the beginning of a brave new decade. On a weekend break in York I was taken aback, not by the city walls or the Jorvik Viking Centre, but by the staggering amount of quiz machines on show. Every other pub must’ve had one, yet for so long I’d been under the impression that they’d almost died out. It surely was a great start to the brave new decade.

Or so I thought. Fast forward to another jaunt in the Chocolate City, this time over the Jubilee Weekend, and not one. Looks like my hunch from two-and-a-half years back was correct after all.

But it wasn’t a complete shock, despite York lulling me into a false sense of security. I came across one in McGlynn’s near Kings Cross earlier this year, but pre-2020 I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had the opportunity to put my vast knowledge to the test. So it’s time to investigate the death of the quiz machine, with a hefty dose of nostalgia thrown in.

I’d always been a fan. Not just because I’m pretty good at them (the first person to win the jackpot on Top of the Pops in my home town, I’ll have you know), but they were entertaining and gave value for money: stick a couple of quid in a fruit machine and it’s gone in a millisecond; do the same on a quiz machine and you could be there for a good hour.

And maybe we’ve just hit on the first snag right there. Unfortunately, money talks, especially with the pub trade needing as much profit as possible. Sure, the big prize on a fruity is ten times that of a quiz machine, but how much money goes into one before the serious cash drops? Also, while it may be extremely difficult to win the star prize on a game of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, for example, it’s not always that difficult to spend a bit of time winning £2, putting it back in and repeating the process.

But back in the early 2000s, when quiz machines started to make their mark, your favourite watering hole was firmly on its uppers. We’d also entered a golden era for TV quizzes, with the aforementioned Millionaire and The Weakest Link leading the way – it was like the perfect storm. Of course, previous favourites such as Bullseye found their way onto quiz machines, and over the ensuing years shows like Eggheads, Deal or No Deal and Pointless would also tempt you to part with your cash.

However, during this time something else would start to establish itself; something that is now so familiar and intertwined within our lives, it’s an integral part of the modern lexicon. No, not Platty Joobs, but that single, all-encompassing word: Google. No longer do we have to rely on grey matter alone (much to the annoyance of many a pub quizmaster and competitor), but we can now find the answers to the toughest of trivia at the touch of a smartphone. Now I’m not suggesting that we’re all agile enough with our fingertips to put together a run of ten correct answers, but there’s plenty out there who can, and….. well, it’s just not on, in more ways than one. As already mentioned, quiz machines were always entertaining. Even if you lost, you still learned a few things, so where’s the fun in googling? Anybody?

While myself and countless others were happy to pass some time playing classics such as Hangman Saloon, Stand and Deliver and Pints Make Prizes, there were many who just didn’t want to know. Sadly, that number probably only grew from 2015 onwards, when there was the first hint that quiz machines had had their day. They started to become a niche thing; a little uncool; relics of a bygone era, you might say.

From then on it was only a matter of time before they disappeared from our towns and were confined to cities like York. However, as I’ve recently discovered for myself, they’ve gone the way of the dodo there as well. So unless you find yourself in that pub in Kings Cross, you’ll just have to be content to raise a glass and say “RIP Quiz Machines, and cheers for the memories!”

Do you miss the good old quiz machine? Share your memories in the comments.