One of the problems with the pinball machines for Novices, is that when they swipe the card the game doesnt start cause they dont know that they have to hit the start button. This is why most people swipe multiple times before they work it out, leading to extra swipes and $$ spent by accident.
The swipe system is a major money earner on anything that requires a push of a start button to get it going. Then they finish a game and dont realise they still have credits which get wiped by the next swiper. This is why they make soo much money at Surfers at $1.50 a game.

What they do outside of holiday times I cant remember, but I was getting 3 games per one swipe one day, and only 1 game a swipe the next day.
The Transformer machine always seemed to give 3 or 4 games per swipe which was good, but with the flippers being so weak on that machine and Tron, u didnt bother even finishing a game cause you couldnt even hit the top ramp shots. I am glad they finally serviced some of the games for the school holidays, but I have a feeling AMD did it when they were up there for the AC/DC comp a few weeks back etc.

You couldnt run the mnachines there on coins, the machines would need emptying too often and the call attendant light would always be on the swiper mechanism.