The author may not realize (I only know this because my mother worked for the Soviet arcade ministry of sorts in the 80s) is that there was a whole illicit angle to the arcade business.
They were all cash-based - which created huge opportunities for embezzlement for guys working there. The government had no way of knowing how many coins were actually deposited (ie the technicians could fiddle with counters or whatever) - so they could skim huge (and shared the loot all the way to the top). The vig was apparently massive.
Every now and then somebody would leave their wife, she'd write a report to the special police that dealt with economic crime and the whole structure would end up in jail.
Funny how things are similar. I was in the USAF with a fellow who had served in Vietnam. While there, he had a side job of repairing the slot machines that were in the Officers and NCO clubs. Like the Soviet arcades, this was also a cash business, and the machines were also rigged. His share of the vig supplemented his military salary fairly well, he said.
They were all cash-based - which created huge opportunities for embezzlement for guys working there. The government had no way of knowing how many coins were actually deposited (ie the technicians could fiddle with counters or whatever) - so they could skim huge (and shared the loot all the way to the top). The vig was apparently massive.
Every now and then somebody would leave their wife, she'd write a report to the special police that dealt with economic crime and the whole structure would end up in jail.
Fun times.