SWP’s or Skill with Prizes machines were at one time very popular with players and gaming machine operators too, for they are a type of machine on which no gaming license was required, and it was a players skill and abilities at playing the games they offered which determined as to whether they would win or lose.
That is in sharp contrast to gaming machines such as slot and video poker machines, which are ultimately controlled by random number generators, which define those types of gaming machines as games of chance as opposed to games of skill.
Back in the day when SWP’s were popular, all pubs and club would have at least one such machine in their premises, in fact as they require no gaming license, they were also found in all manner of other locations.
The most common type of Skill with Prizes machines were ones on which players would be asked a series of general knowledge questions, and the aim was to answer as many questions right as was possible, to win a cash prize.
Sadly though SWP’s have seen a downturn in their popularity, and as such there are only a fraction of them now available across Great Britain compared to a decade or so ago, and unless a new generation of machines are introduced which offer some other type of skill based games, other than just a question and answer format they are likely to become even harder to find machines.
With no limit on the stakes players can play them for and with no maximum pay-out limits either, there surely must be some developers out there that have some ideas as to how to bring out a new Skill with Prizes machine format, and if there is there is surely some money to be made by launching such machines especially with the very liberal laws surrounding them.
