Try showing off your throwing skills at the arcade by winning the jackpot on Two Minute Drill. It can be pretty difficult to beat at first. With enough practice and with the tips provided in this guide, you should be winning tons of tickets on Two Minute Drill in no time.
Two Minute Drill Tips: How to Win the Jackpot
1. Know the Score you Have to Beat and Other Helpful Information
Keep in mind that these settings could change depending on arcade location. Most of the numbers will be correct if you are playing at Dave and Buster’s. Check the Two Minute Drill manual if you want to see all the possible settings.
The timer counts down 2 minutes…but the actual time you have is a little over a minute as this timer counts down quicker than normal.
The Two Minute Drill machine should have 7 footballs in it. It may have less if people have stolen or lost them.
It costs 5.6 chips to play Two Minute Drill at Dave and Buster’s. 2.8 chips on Half-off Wednesday. This is one of the cheaper games to play at Dave and Buster’s.
The Two Minute Drill Jackpot is 250 tickets.
The high score needed to get the jackpot is reset each day. The default score to beat is 500. So if you are the first person to play Two Minute Drill in the morning then it should be at 500. Check this high score before you play to see if it is a score low enough that you can beat.
The high score maxes out at 999 points. Which is possible to achieve by extremely skilled players.
The score to beat goes down by 1 each time someone does not get the jackpot. For example, if you play when you need to get 500 points and you don’t get enough to win then the next time you play you will need to get above 499 points to get the jackpot.
The score to beat goes up 26 points each time someone wins the jackpot that day. Read the next tip to see how this allows you to win the jackpot multiple times in a row.
2. Beat the High Score by as Little as Possible
Try to keep track of your score while playing Two Minute Drill so that your points just barely get above the score required to win. Then you can play back to back to win the jackpot again.
There is a trick to getting the right amount over the last high score. The arcade machine will only add 26 points if you beat the last score by 25 or less. But if you beat it by over 25 then it will use the score that you just got and add 26 more to that.
For example, let’s say you play on Two Minute Drill for the first time and the high score is at the default 500 points. If you got 520 points on that first round then the new score to beat will be 500 + 26; or 526. Instead, if you got 530 points the first round then the new score to beat will be 530 + 26; or 556. You can see how even just the small 10 point increase over the last score caused the next required jackpot score to be 30 points higher.
It will be so much easier to get lots of Two Minute Drill jackpots in a row if you beat the high score by less than 25 points each time.
A perfect day of winning Two Minute Drill could result in 20 jackpots in a row; starting from 500 and ending with 999 points.
Getting just one jackpot can be difficult, and getting scores above that can seem impossible. But if you are skilled enough then you will be able to reach high scores of 999 (just watch the video below). How do you beat the high score? The next few tips will help you get good enough to win more consistently.
3. Use This Throwing Strategy
You can try throwing the football normally; with the classic spiral toss. Though, I would not recommend throwing this way. It bounces out of the holes too often.
It is easier to score if you throw the football like a dart, with either a backward spin or no spin. If the football hits slightly above or below the hole it will most likely bounce into the hole instead of out like a normal spiral toss would. I find the dart throw to be more accurate as well.
Get in a good, balanced stance. Lean on the machine with a thigh or hip to both sturdy yourself and to get as close to the targets as you can.
4. Know What Targets to Aim For
There are 3 targets to score the football in. The top one is the smallest and worth 50 points. The middle is a little bigger and worth 30 points. The bottom one is the largest and worth 20 points.
The best strategy to get the most points consistently on Two Minute Drill is to aim for the middle, 30 point target.
It may be tempting to go only for the top, 50 point hole, because it is the most points. The 30 point hole is big enough to allow the football to fit way more often then the smaller 50 point hole. You can be quite a bit less accurate and still score in the middle hole.
If you practice enough then you can consider going for the 50 point hole, especially if it is towards the end of the game and you need a lot more points to win the jackpot.
While you are scoring in the middle hole, be on the lookout for the square targets with football players on them that pop up in the corners. Always try to hit these square targets when they pop up as they will give you a large amount of points along with being relatively easy to hit.
The points you can get for them are 20, 40, or 99; with 40 being the most common point value that shows up. It can be game winning if you can hit the 99 point target.
Watch the video below to help visualize the throwing strategies.
5. Practice
There is not much else to say about this tip. Play Two Minute Drill as much as you can with the intention of learning from your mistakes and getting the muscle memory of the throw down.
Like most skill-based arcade games, you will need to put in work playing them a lot before you can get good enough to win the jackpot.
It is a smart idea to practice on Half-off Wednesday at Dave and Buster’s so that you can play more games for cheaper.
6. Extra Tips and Tricks
The timer starts counting down when it blows the whistle and not when you throw the first ball, so be ready to throw. Pick up a couple footballs before the game starts. Have one football in your throwing hand and another one in your off-hand to be ready to swap hands right after you throw the first one.
The air in the footballs can affect how easy it is to get into the holes. The less air, the easier it is to score in the holes. This is because the ball does not bounce off the sides and out as hard when the football is flatter.
Two Minute Drill Hacks
There is no such thing as arcade “hacks”. If there were an easy to win “hack” for Two Minute Drill then the game would not exist because arcades would not want them because they would be losing money for the business.
The closest thing to a Two Minute Drill “hack” would be that sometimes the light sensor will count a scored ball twice on accident. But this is just a random fluke that happens seldomly and is not in your control.
I only mention hacks because I want you to be aware that it is a popular phrase used on the internet to clickbait people into thinking there is a simple way to cheat the system and win tons of tickets.
In order to beat Two Minute Drill more than the average player you will need to work hard and also have the knowledge of the tips mentioned here to help.
Two Minute Drill Review Score
Score is out of 10, with 1 being all luck to win and 10 being all skill.
Skill Rating: 9
Two Minute Drill takes a lot of skill to win the jackpot. You need to be able to consistently throw the footballs with precision, as well as grab and throw them quickly enough to be able to score enough points before the time runs out.
It can be lucky if you play on a Two Minute Drill machine that the jackpot score is at its lowest. Most of the time the score will be racked up to a point that is hard to beat, especially on a busy day.
There is also some luck involved in the way the football bounces. Sometimes you will be so close to scoring in the hole but the football will bounce out randomly. Another luck factor that is related is how pumped up or deflated with air the football is at the arcade location you are playing at.
Fun Rating: 7
I love these skillful, carnival-like, arcade games. It really makes you feel like you earned the jackpot when you win it. You need to practice or be extremely good at throwing accurately to win on the first few plays.
Playing Two Minute Drill with a buddy is a lot of fun. It has a two-player option. You can see who has what it takes to score more footballs than the other person.
The difficulty of scoring in the smallest hole can make playing this game frustrating but I know that it needs to be difficult so that it is not a free win at the jackpot.
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