Carnival Midway Game Secrets Revealed

Men spend countless dollars every summer in (usually) vain attempts to prove their manhood by winning a prize for their girlfriend, wife or child(ren) at the local amusement park, county fair or traveling carnival. Balls are thrown, guns are shot, and rings are tossed all in an attempt to be the hero. Well, as a former carny who spent years on the road with the Butler Brothers, I'm here to give you a few tips, save you a little cash, and maybe even help you look like the man you want your loved ones to believe you are.

First, the basics:

Few, if any, carnivals still rig their games. There simply is no need. The odds are already stacked in the operator's favor, just as they are in the casinos. The prizes are so cheap when purchased wholesale and the games so challenging, that cheating simply isn't necessary.

The smaller the business behind the carnival the more difficult the games will be to win. In other words, amusement parks (backed by multi-billion dollar conglomerates) have no need to con you out of a few more bucks, the games on the midway at your county or state fair are run by legitimate businesses as the fair is a repeat booking with nearly guaranteed attendance, and the mini-carnivals that spring up in abandoned parking lots are the most likely to be focused exclusively on your wallet.

Befriending a carny can increase your odds of walking away with a prize, but not at the amusement parks or corporate carnivals. Almost all carnies (those who travel from town to town) work on a commission basis. Winners bring players, so fill their needs and they may well fill yours. This doesn't work on the high school kids working at the local theme park, as the eyes of their corporate bosses are usually keeping careful watch through nearby surveillance cameras.

If you can flirt, you may not even need to win. True carnies spend a lot of time on the road. The majority of the men feel they're quite good with the ladies. They also know, from experience, that a well-placed winner may very well get them some company for the evening. If you want that teddy bear bad enough, flirting just may work. Whether you follow through or not is, of course, up to you.

Bribes work as well. Most carnies are pretty heavy drinkers and few are opposed to other mind-altering substances if the price is right (like one of their boss' prizes, for example). Cash goes a long way as well, but is much more difficult to hide from the overseers then material bribes.

Never try to play to a carny's sympathy. I've never seen it work. Regardless of the game being straight or rigged, most carnies see themselves as con men. Life on the road isn't easy and cynicism is the order of the day.

Patience and observation are the key. The more time you spend observing other people playing (people, not carnies), the more you'll understand the game. Watch the angle the players are at, keep an eye on the specific equipment being used, and anything else you can possibly take in. These games are set-up and taken down quite frequently, so what works today may not quite work tomorrow. Observe and learn.

Enough with the generalities. Let's move on to some specific games:

The Ladder: Definitely the most entertaining carnival game for the spectators. These ladders are connected at only a single point on either end. But it's unlike any ladder you've ever climbed. First off, never grab the rungs of the ladder. Your hands should remain on the outer ropes while your feet either sit above the rungs on the ropes themselves or are tucked into the corner of the rung and rope. Move like an animal - a slow, steady animal. When you remove your right foot from the ladder, your left hand should be moving and vice versa. This allows you to keep your weight more evenly distributed.

Machine Gun Star / Target: You get 100 rounds to shoot out that little star? No problem! Or so you think. This is the most difficult game on the midway, so take any edge you can get! Forget about trying to use the sites to aim, these guns receive zero maintenance. However, keep an eye on the people playing before you. Don't worry about the accuracy of the weapon. Instead, choose the one with the tightest shot grouping. You'll be tempted to work your way out from the center of the target, but this is a waste of your ammunition. Instead work your way around the outside edge of the colored area. A lot of carnies will leave loading tubes sitting on the counter. These are also poorly maintained and many have their ends crimped higher up than others. Look for the tubes with the shortest amount of space below the crimp as they'll hold more pellets. Remember that tip about befriending the game operator? They have almost total discretion to determine winners at this game, so bring 'em a beer if you really want to win.

Basketball: Yes, the balls are overinflated, neither the ball nor the hoop is regulation size, and the backboard has more action than a Ft. Lauderdale bar during Spring Break. The key here, as in most ball through hoop/opening games is to drop straight down. Forget the backboard and avoid the rim at all costs. In fact, remember when you used to shoot hoops by swinging the ball between your legs and alley-ooping it up at the basket? That's probably your best bet here as well.

Dart Balloons: How hard could it be to pop a balloon with a dart? Well, it gets more difficult when the darts are duller than the corn dog you just ate and the balloons are so limp they're barely holding their shape. Many people suggest bringing your own darts, but are you really interested in carrying darts around all day just for a trinket? Go ahead and use their dull darts. But don't worry about using the sharp point to try to pop the woefully under inflated balloon. Instead, arc the dart so that it hits the board on a steep downward trajectory, thus using the weight of the dart to do the damage.

Test Of Strength: Probably the definitive midway challenge is the Test of Strength. Unfortunately, it's not seen much anymore. As mentioned above, even here, it's not as much about brawn as you might think. Accuracy is the true key to taking home the Kewpie doll. You need to land the mallet perfectly flat in the dead center of the target. Anything else just wastes energy. Grip the very end of the hammer with both hands so as to get the most centrifugal force and swing it completely over your head, using your arcing back to add power.

Speed Throw: A modern version of the Test of Strength, which measures the speed or power in a thrown baseball or football. Much like its predecessor, accuracy is far more important here than strength. Watch a few players before stepping up yourself in order to judge where the sweet spot is on the target. Hint: if you're looking at an over sized picture of a catcher, it's most likely not in the dead center of his glove.

Chicken/Frog/Witch Catapult: These were first introduced in the late '80s and consist of a small catapult with a mallet attatched; a rotating table with 4 to 6 cooking pots, lily pads or cauldrons; and a stuffed or rubber critter. You place the critter on one end of the catapult, whack the other end with the mallet, and try to make the critter land in the pot. The good news is you usually get three critters and only need to get one in to be a winner. Make sure to tuck all of the extremities (arms, legs, wings, etc.) under the body of the critter, leaving yourself with a tight little projectile. On your first shot, aim for the cauldron farthest from you and hit the catapult as hard as you can. This will give you an idea of how much force is necessary and how much is too much. Landing a prize shouldn't be too difficult at that point.

The Cat Rack: You may not recognize the name, but you'd surely recognize the game. This is one of the deeper booths and it has several rows of very hairy carnival punks (cats, monsters, whatever) lined up that need to be knocked over with a thrown baseball, softball, or beanbag. The Cat Rack is a classic because it is deceptively difficult. The punks have all that hair for a reason. It makes it difficult to gauge which part is actually solid and leads to the assumption that they're much closer to each other than they actually are. The most common mistake at the Cat Rack is to throw hard. These punks are not difficult to knock over, they're difficult to hit. Don't worry about hitting them hard, just make sure you throw accurately. When I used to work the Cat Rack I encouraged people to lean over the counter as far as possible. Why? Because this puts them off balance and makes accuracy more difficult. A common derivative of this is to have plates that need to be broken. Again, these plates are much weaker than they appear (they're cheaper that way), so concentrate on accuracy over power.

Milk Bottles: Again, this game's still around because it still manages to fool most of the people, most of the time. Although it takes more power than the Cat Rack, accuracy is still far more important here. The trick is that most people aim for the center where the milk bottles rest upon each other. You want to be aiming for the center bottom. 80 percent of the weight of a milk bottle is in the bottom 20 percent of its height. This isn't because they're rigged, it's just a result of their manufacturing process. If you knock out the bottom bottles the top one is very likely to fall off the table as well. Many people try to hit the bottles at an angle. With a stack of three this is simply wasted energy. You'll actually have to hit the bottles harder at an angle then you would if you hit them straight on. When the game includes five bottles the angle may be worthwhile, but only if you miss completely with your first ball.

Dime/Quarter Toss: For some reason this is one of the most popular games for young children. I suppose it's all that glittering glass. The thing to remember is that the cliche stops on a dime exists for a reason. Forward motion takes space to be stopped: much more then is usually available on the slick surface of these glass plates. The straight way to win this game is to arc the coin so that it has almost zero forward motion when it lands on the plate. Don't toss the coins, lob them. Then it's just a matter of accuracy and bounce. The crooked way to ensure you take home a prize is to ensure your coin creates more friction than metal and glass traditionally would have. The most common method for doing this is to get a little spit on the coin, though I've found that saving gross old coins will cause a lot fewer conflicts with the carnies. When I was on the circuit I don't think we stopped in a single small town where some local football star didn't get the bright idea to coat his coins in the stickum made famous by Fred Biletnikoff and Lester Hayes. It'll get the job done, but we also left more than one town early as a result of conflicts with the local team. A better bet may be to let the kids eat some sticky foods (funnel cake, anyone) just before playing and then simply act innocent when they win.

Water Guns / Balloon Races: These are the games where observation is very much king. As pointed out above, carnivals aren't known for maintaining their game equipment. There can be a dramatic difference between one station and another in these games. Some guns have better water flow then others, some targets are more sensitive then others, and some compressors have better airflow then others. The only way to know for sure is to observe a lot of games and see which ones win more often. Many people suggest looking for old or new balloons on the balloon pop version of this game, but having personally run a few thousand balloon races, I haven't seen a notable pattern of new vs. old. However, if you were to come by more than a couple of hours into my shift and befriend me I could almost assuredly tell you which stations were most likely to take home the prize.

Bushel Baskets: I can't count the number of different methods I've heard for winning the bushel basket game. The thing is, it really is one of the easiest games on the midway, so many of them work often enough to convince their supporters. Having both worked this booth and won 95% of the times I've played it, I can assure you that my system is as close to a guarantee as you can get when it comes to the midway. The trick is to palm the ball and lob it lightly so that it catches the outer edge of the lower rim. As you toss it your hand should be above the ball, raising your arm in a smooth motion and tossing with your wrist. No need to put a spin on the ball. The very nature of tossing it this way will put a very slight one on it. This force will be reversed when its the basket, causing the ball to stop nearly dead as it comes into contact with the back of the basket.

SkeeBall: SkeeBall was invented in Philadelphia almost 100 years ago (it will be celebrating it's centennial in 2009), found its way to midways everywhere in the roaring 20s and today is a staple both at carnivals and arcades. When I was but a wee lad I made my first solo trek to a carnival midway, pockets brimming with quarters, and met a man that appeared to be 100 years old himself. He'd been running the SkeeBall concession on that particular circuit since World War II and could literally score a 40 or 50 every roll even with his eyes closed, blindfolded or backwards. He taught me his tricks and they've never failed me. He taught me to position myself in front of alley A while playing on alley B, which would be the alley to the immediate right. This allows me to roll the ball at an angle so that it impacts with the side rail approximately 3/4 of the way up. Once you've found the magic spot for the particular SkeeBall variation you're playing it's just a matter of zoning in on the speed necessary to hit 40s and 50s on a regular basis.

The Claw: Modern claw games are the exception that proves the rule when it comes to rigged games. Modern games are programmed in the same way slot machines are to only pay out after a certain number of plays. This setting is adjustable, so observation is key once again. Simply wait for a winner, then count the number of players before the next winner. Lather, rinse, repeat, and the pattern should become clear. This will tell you when you have a chance of winning. Getting the claw positioned over the prize you seek is entirely up to you. Note that I said modern claw games. The older versions have no such timing device and count on the challenge of the game and the low cost of the prizes to ensure their profit margins. It's also possible to turn off these regulators altogether meaning it's possible to win 9 times out of 10 on a particular machine in the morning, only to not have a chance for 20 plays in the afternoon.

I hope these tips will lead you to success on your next visit to the midway, whether that means winning the girl, or being your child's hero once again. The most important thing to remember, is that midways are there to be fun and exciting. The prizes are great, but it's the joy in playing that should be the real draw.