picking arcade machines?

[vixroy]

hi

ive recently started picking with my friend, and the locks on the arcade machines they have at my friends bowling alley are mixed between tubular and other. the others i think are pin tumbler but i wasnt sure.

me and my friend have his dads permission to practice on a machine or two. it seems like it would work well because when the machines open the locks are usually visible. the tubular is pretty straight forward (using southord, it opened in about a minute) but the other one has been tough. its probably because im new that i dont know, but i didnt know much about the lock so i wanted to ask.

can you guys give me info on what type of lock these are and what the best tool would be?

thanks!

[barbarian]

You really don't want to learn on a lock that is in use. Poking around inside the locks can be rough on them. Also, there are types of locks that can be damaged by picking them. Once damaged the proper key won't even work.

Vending machines and arcade machines are a bit of a sensitive topic, you can imagine some guys plugging all their money into a machine and then looking at that lock. One can imagine they would want to learn to pick those types of locks to get some quick cash.

The best idea would be for the guys father to give you a couple of older practice locks that he had removed from a machine. If he has a few machines around, he must have changed some locks. That way you could even cut them opened to find out all about them.

[zeke79]

Please read the rules, do not practice on locks that are in use. On top of that, it is likely that some of these machines are actually owned and serviced by another company. Alot of bowling alleys etc are that way. It keeps cost down to just rent SOME machines .

Again, do not pick locks that are in use.