The Milk Bottle Toss Scam

Why You Will Never Knock All Those Bottles Over If the Carny Doesn't Want You to

We’ve all played the milk bottle game at a county fair, haven’t we? You know the one: a pyramid of three or sometimes six bottles that you toss a ball at in order to knock them over and win a prize that cost less to make than the piddling amount you’re charged to play the game. It looks so easy to knock those bottles over, plus you’ve got gravity on your side as well. Not to mention the fact that you’re typically given three balls and three chances to knock the bottles over. And yet how often have you ever seen anyone actually win at this game?

That’s because usually the game is a cheat. Or, in the parlance of the carny, it’s been “gaffed.” But wait a minute, you say, you’ve seen people successfully knock the bottles over; maybe you’ve even done it yourself. So the game can’t be crooked, right? Besides, aren’t there regulations against that now? Yeah, just like there are regulations protecting you from being cheated by big business.

The game isn’t always gaffed, that’s true. And it’s also true that you may have been one of the lucky ones who knocked over the bottles and walked off with a Pink Floyd mirror. But you were just a pawn in a bigger game, my friend. After all, if somebody doesn’t win sometimes, nobody would ever play it. Usually, of course, the guy who walks off with that Pink Floyd mirror or Budweiser mug is a friend of the guy running the game. But not always. The next time you luck into someone winning the milk bottle toss game, stick around and watch how many people come up and go back down again without knocking every bottle over.