Winning At Fairground Games I'm going to pen a few articles concerning how to go about increasing your chances of winning on the popular funfair games, I also hope to dispel some of the myths surrounding the way games are operated. First off lets deal with the situation you commonly see on many games. This is the one with a giant prize, around its neck hangs the label "Me free if you lose". Prizes of this size wholesale at around �10-�20 each, common sense would indicate that you are not going to give the game attendant �1-50 and be guaranteed that prize. What happens is that the game is designed in such a way that it is very difficult to lose, you win virtually every time, but when you win you are given a small prize. The fact is that the size of prizes is directly related to the difficulty of the game, shooting galleries require skill so tend to dispense quite large prizes, a hook a duck stall you merely have to catch a floating duck, so the prize must wholesale at less than the cost of the game. Shooting Galleries The barrel is bent, and the sights are off are the two most common complaints heard in relation to shooting games. A gun with a bent barrel does not fire off target, it simply jams and does not fire at all. As for sights being off, some operators probably do but the fact is there is no need to do this. The vast majority of people simply have no idea how to aim a gun correctly, those who do can easily adjust their aim to take into account the sights inaccuracy so its pointless adjusting it off target. The technique for this is called aiming off. Take your first shot and see where it hits, if it hits half an inch to the left of where you aimed, then simply aim all of you remaining shots, half an inch to the right, if it hits an inch below, aim an inch above and so on. Correct Aiming Technique Most fairground rifles have simple open or "iron sights", these require you to line 3 things up, the rear sight, the front sight and the target. Lets assume the target is a small dot, the picture below shows the image you should see if your sights are lined up correctly. This image, coupled with the aiming off technique should give you a good chance on games with the round targets, usually rings of increasingly smaller diameter, with the inner ring or bullseye being worth the most points. Hearts One of the most popular targets on the fairground is the 3 hearts. This consists of 3 hearts of increasingly smaller size, the object of the game is to land a shot inside each heart without touching the red line. The smallest heart is quite difficult, consequently the prizes tend to be large ones. The big mistake everyone makes is trying to aim dead centre on each heart, whilst this works on the first two, the smallest heart doesn't have room for a pellet to fit into this position. You need to aim into the upper corners of the heart which forms a naturally rounded shape. Also another tip is to always go for the biggest heart first, if the guns aim is slightly out, the larger heart gives you a chance to sort your aim out whilst still landing a shot inside, the smallest heart can only be done with a very accurately placed shot.
