One detection unit can cover several machines — but only if they sit packed together inside its sensing range, and only for the kind of threat that unit is built to catch. A wide-range V5 Result Integrity Monitor watches a 5–8 m zone and can reasonably cover a tight cluster of cabinets. A close-guard Score Theft unit (1–1.5 m for Gen 1, 2.5–3 m for Gen 2) is meant to protect one machine, or two if they're side by side. The mistake is assuming "one box covers the room." It doesn't — coverage is about range and line-of-sight, not wishful thinking.
I'm Engineer Wang, fourteen years in arcade hardware security out of Panyu, Guangzhou. Operators always want to know the cheapest way to protect a floor, and "can I get away with one unit?" is the first question. Here's the honest answer, machine by machine.
Three things decide how many machines a single unit can cover:
Range. Gen 1: ~1–1.5 m. Gen 2: ~2.5–3 m. K8 monitor: ~2.5–3 m. V5 monitor: ~5–8 m. Everything you want covered must fall inside that radius.
Spacing. Cabinets crammed shoulder-to-shoulder are coverable by one wider unit; the same cabinets spread across a room are not. A V5 in the middle of a six-pack of fish tables packed within 5–8 m can watch the cluster. Stretch those tables down a long wall and one unit can't reach the ends.
Obstruction. A continuous metal sheet between the unit and a cabinet blocks it. Plastic, wood, and acrylic don't. In an all-steel layout, walls of cabinets can shadow machines behind them even within nominal range.
A tight cluster of similar machines. A V5 covering a packed bank of fish-game tables or pusher machines is exactly what it's designed for — central placement, all cabinets inside 5–8 m, no metal walls in between.
Two cabinets side by side. A Gen 2 unit between two adjacent machines can cover both if they're within 2.5–3 m and not metal-shielded from it.
A monitored zone rather than a single point. For watching suspicious wireless/data activity across an area, the wide-range monitor is built to survey the whole cluster, not one cabinet.
High-value or insured cabinets. Lottery, redemption, and insurance-type machines are the ones cheaters target hardest. I tell operators to give these dedicated close protection — a K8 on each, not a shared unit watching from across the aisle. The loss from one missed hit dwarfs the cost of a second unit.
Spread-out floors. If machines are scattered for traffic flow, a single unit physically can't reach them all. Cover each zone with its own unit.
Different threat types on different machines. A coin-door pulse attack and a fish-game cheat-code attack aren't caught by the same tool. A floor with mixed machine types needs the right detector on each, not one box hoping to cover everything.
Walk your floor and group machines into clusters that fall within one unit's range with clear line-of-sight. Each tight cluster of lower-risk machines can share a wide-range monitor; each high-value cabinet gets its own close-guard unit. That blended approach — shared coverage where it's safe, dedicated coverage where the money is — protects the whole floor without buying a unit for every cabinet.
Placement is half the battle here, so pair this with where to place a detection device on a game machine, and see the full deploy flow on the setup and operation overview. The wider question of which model matches which machines is in the equipment selection and buying guide.
Send me a quick sketch or photo of your floor layout on WhatsApp or WeChat at +86 17620842078 (Engineer Wang), or reach the team via Contact Us. I'll tell you exactly how many units you need and where each one goes — I'd rather you buy the right number than the most.