Machines & Gaming: Machine monitoring
Of course, it's good telly. But here's proof that Dragon's Den can have a hand in bringing real results in the outside world - and even have an impact on pub businesses.It was little more than a year ago that Richard Adams and Ian Daintith stood in front of the BBC's terrifying line-up of moneyed entrepreneurs to make their bid for a cash investment in their invention - a wireless device that tracks the performance of fruit machines.
After a gruelling two-and-a-half hour pitch they came away with one of the biggest deals ever seen on the show - £200,000 in return for a 25 per cent stake for two of the dragons, Deborah Meaden and Theo Paphitis.
As it turned out, the relationship didn't last long, "but the important thing was it got our name out there," says Richard.
And in May this year their company, Coin Metrics, was bought by a name familiar to anyone in the pub trade - Brulines.
Now Ron Colley, commercial and marketing director at the dispense monitoring firm, believes Coin Metrics technology will bring "the next generation of machine management" to the industry. A prototype is already on trial in pub machines and a full launch will take place before the end of this year. "Being part of Brulines offers us a route to a host of things, including getting into pub groups," says Richard, who continues to run Coin Metrics as a separate entity.
"We have 4,500 units out there across 95 sites, mostly arcades and bingo clubs. But now our aim is to increase that to between 20,000 and 30,000 units over the next two years."
Coin Metrics' roots go back to September 2004 when Richard, whose background is in wireless communications, foresaw a market for fruit machine monitoring in amusement arcades.
"Cabling up all those machines would be a nightmare in an arcade so they just didn't do it," he says. "They didn't have a clue how much money they were taking, or when a machine went wrong, until a week too late."
Although they aren't quite as reliant on machines as arcades, pubs have a similar need for machine monitoring. "Currently reports are up to date at the last collection - whenever that is - and go online within 24 hours, which is light years ahead of where we were 10 years ago," explains Ron.
"But there's a long way to go for real immediacy of information."
In contrast, Coin Metrics' Site Guardian system records every coin dropped into the machine and transmits the data wirelessly into Brulines' EDIS Box. It's relayed from there to Brulines' servers where it can be pulled together into tailored reports which might, for example, track machine performance alongside lager poured, giving an insight into players' behaviour.
Not only that but it will trigger an alarm if there's a fault, or the machine isn't turned on, or if there's an attempt at fraud.
Because Site Guardian knows how much cash is in the hopper at any one time, it also has positive implications for collections.
At the moment someone will collect the money from the machine on a regular basis, say weekly. But research has shown that only 20 per cent of these collections are timely, and not made after the machine has shut down because it's full, or it's too empty to make the collection - which costs an average £80 - worthwhile.
And because you can manage cashflow better through the machine you can get away with a smaller float, perhaps £100 rather than £200 - which makes breaking in a lot less attractive for the passing thief.
