QUESTION: In the arcade that I frequent, I like to play Skee-Ball. For the uninitiated, in Skee-Ball, a player rolls a small ball down a miniature alley with a small ramp at the end of it. The ball travels down the alley and up the ramp which launches it towards a series of holes. The object of the game is to get the ball into the holes. Each hole has a different value depending on the size and placement of the hole. The game is timed, and the more balls a player gets into the respective holes, the higher the score and the more tickets the Skee-Ball machine spits out. The player then takes the tickets and redeems them at the arcade counter for a prize.
To maximize the number of tickets that I may receive, may I pay for 2 Skee-Ball machines that are situated side-by-side to run simultaneously? Now that I have the two machines going at the same time, I have a total of 10 Skee-Balls to use (5 from each machine). I will use all 10 Skee-Balls on one machine and rack up points faster which will lead the machine to issue more tickets. The arcade does not have a stated policy that prohibits this, so is there anything wrong with this creative approach to getting more tickets or is this considered “gaming the system” and not permitted?
ANSWER: Wow! This is a very clever hack! To do so without asking permission from the arcade would require at least a significant minority of people who have already engaged in this practice. This is because there is a Smah in Choshain Mishpat 228:16 on Shuchan Aruch 228:6 that states that when everyone knows that a particular sales practice is occurring and there are no complaints about it, then it becomes the Minhag HaSochrim - the customary practice of sellers and is permitted. Extending the concept of Minhag HaSochrim to mean the customary practice of a buyer or consumer as in your case, since you are playing Skee-Ball in a way that is not common, you would need to ask permission from the arcade to engage in this practice. You may ask permission from the cashier or salesperson at the front desk and do not need to seek out the owner since these employees have been empowered to make decisions of this nature.
