But how long do they have that edge? If it's a league, then not long enough for it to matter in my opinion. I  bowl a high level scratch league where the house mechanic is in the same league. The guy is a decent bowler, but is middle of the pack in this league at best. His team didn't even win their points the first week, so knowing the pattern only goes so far.

As I stated in a previous comment, if a league bowler can't find the shot within a couple of league sessions, then having the actual pattern information is not going to help him/her anyway.

Personally, IMHO, USBC had a good thing when they announced the Red, White and Blue Patterns, designing certain patterns for all alleys to try and see which will work best.  USBC decided for some reason to make the house shot the Red pattern, and that took out the Blue and White out of play. 

Because of this, league bowling has become a joke and only the employees (mainly mechanic and manager) have the edge over all bowlers (assuming there are no pro bowlers in your league).  If USBC would come up a pattern for the Red,  and told all alleys they must use one of the three in order to comply with USBC, bowling leagues in my mind would be fair again. 

The sport has gotten so technical, I firmly believe the bowler has the right to know what pattern is out there so they can decided what their next purchase of equipment is. 

So to answer the question, the league shot should NOT be a secret. 

I'm with Milo on this one. If you can't figure it out within a couple of weeks, bowling 3 games plus practice, a chart or lane graph isn't going to help you out. It's not like the majority of house shots are hard to figure out. Also, if you figure in that one side (low end) of the house may play totally different than the other side (high end) due to topography, and the inconsistancies of the normal bowlers release, I don't think it would make a difference in play.

You would be having guys taking the chart into their pro shop, showing them it, and saying "I want a ball that will work on that". Nevermind how you actually bowl. Here's the pattern. If you don't think so, think again.

I've bowled in a house that couldn't tell you for sure what the shot was. Mainly due to the equipment. They could tell you what they were trying for but that wasn't the end result.

It was a typical Christmas tree pattern except from the 7 board to the gutter on both sides was out of bounds. This would be the shot for a few months then the shot would go to a lighter oil pattern with out the out of bounds on the gutter. It would go back and forth for no reason.

Still if you asked what brand furniture polish they used to wax the synthetic approaches they would get that right every time. (the furniture polish was better then the powder they use to dump out, I will admit that) ahhhh do not miss bowling there.

Very serious. We live in a usually hot and always humid environment.(aka dirty south) What most centers do not take into consideration with synthetic approaches, as stated from the manufactures, is that your heating and cooling system needs to meet certain requirements in order for you to get the best results from the approaches.

Our center did not take that into consideration when built back in 2001ish and has had problems every since with the approaches being tacky whenever there is any kind of humidity.(almost daily) So due to bowlers complaining about the approaches the center started trying to fix the problems with band-aids.

Funny how bowlers buy these shoes that can change the heels and soles yet are too stupid and lazy to actually adjust their shows to the approaches.

So the center starts by using a push broom to apply powder on the approaches. Just dumps a pile at one end and pushes it down to the next. Only on the last 3-4 feet of the approaches. This last for several months with several people falling and eventually comes furniture polish and a buffer. (FYI look on any shoe manufactures website for heel or sole replacements that are recommended for powdered approaches or polished approaches)

This is now the current standard for how they dress their approaches. Both the powder and wax ware off during practice and the start of the first game. Until you move left for shooting at say a 10 pin and you hit a slick spot that hasn't been bowled on yet.

Needless to say the shot on the lanes isn't always the toughest thing to worry about.

The old oil machine crapped out and was replaced due to how different it was oiling from one lane to the next. Part of the problem is because of how out of wack the lanes are.

They don't meet USBC standards for how level they should be and there for in many places when the machine oils and stripes the lanes it actually doesn't touch parts of the lanes to do so. This was brought to my attention by the person that checks the lanes yearly. Since the center gets to keep picking lanes till one pair passes. They are still certified by USBC because they do not want to lose the money and the USBC will not have the house fix the several lanes out of compliance. That is you business 101.

Not every center has a Kegel Kustodian lane machine! We used a Century PC for years and it was a wick machine and wasn't very consistant! We've bought a Kegel Kustodian Ion a few years back and run a modified Stone Street pattern and I had somebody ask what pattern we ran and I told him. His response was, "what does that mean"? I ask him if he's ever bowled on any Kegel recreational patterns/ths and he said he didn't know what he's bowled on. I told him to play like a ths around 2nd arrow and just adjust right of left depending on the hook!

You should be able to tell the length of any pattern after you've thrown 3 or 4 balls on the fresh.  I take it the lanes are oiled before league?

It's a house shot....do you need an arsenal and graph to bowl on it?  You should need about 5 shots in 3 minutes of practice to get an idea of where to start.

...it's f'ing league people.  Just put your shoes on and bowl.

Reality is if the lane man handed you a lane graph most of you wouldn't know the first thing about how to read it.  All named patterns are doing is raising a new generation of idiots that can't bowl unless they have landing lights on the lane telling them where to play.

There is oil left and hook to the right....the rest is just details.

This!