Pinball is game with a game with a very interesting background history, and has straddled the line between amusement and gambling.
Pinball initially debuted around 1929 in Youngstown, Ohio, as a mechanical version of the French game bagatelle. Bagatelle could be considered the ancestor of pinball, as it features similar mechanics and a similar apparatus. In it, players take turns launching balls from the bottom right of the device, which then makes its way towards one of the holes to the left of the column it is launched from. Once the ball is initially launched, the rest of the play is up to the ball itself and how it reacts to a board. This is not to say this is a game entirely based on luck, as the launch itself can be very important in bagatelle, since it can change the nature of play quite differently. Player interaction with the field is discouraged, if a ball does not immediately fall into a hole to end play, an opponent may challenge if the player has move the board in some way. This factor of bagatelle remains in modern day pinball in the form of the tilt function. Tilt is a feature completely suspends play if the machine is moved around too much during the game itself. Bagatelle can be played quite a number of ways in a different number of European cultures.
After its initial unveiling, the next important event to happen to pinball was the first production of the game in Chicago. This happened in 1931, and is considered a landmark since every modern pinball game is now produced within Chicago. Pinball machines were eventually made to run on electricity and use a variety of flashing lights by around 1933. A year later, some pinball machines were made with the ability to reward high scores with cash. However, most of these models were frowned up in cities due to the monetary reward which turned the game into a form of gambling. Eventually, this was replaced by 1937 when the ability to reward additional games for excellence in play. This has been carried over in two ways with modern pinball: the first of these is a high score replay, which awards another game with a high enough score; the second is a match replay, which is a luck-based sequence at the very end in which a reel tries to match with the last two digits of your score, which is always a multiple of ten.
One interesting attempt to meld gambling and pinball was the “one-ball machine”, designed to be as profitable as a slot machine while still being promoted as a pinball game. Initially conceived after World War II, the game would only give the player one ball, and would either dispense coins similar to a slot machine, or used a feature similar to the older gambling pinball machine models. The one-ball model is considered to be a console class machine, and is never referred to as pinball, outside of special circumstance. Part of this is due to its high price point of 700 dollars compared to the traditional pinball machines being sold for 225 around the same time. This model was also quickly recognized for the scheme that it was and got banned in most states shortly after it was sold to the public. This model along with slot machines eventually caused those in the pinball industry to separate themselves from the gambling side of the coin-machine industry.
As seen, pinball is a game that has had a bit of a hard time, due to some producers trying to use it as a pure gambling device, along certain features which can be perceived as gambling. It also has a rich heritage with its ancestor bagatelle. These are definitely things to mull over the next time you just happen to put a quarter in for a quick game of pinball.
Sources
Anonymous. “Slot Machines and Pinball Games.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science. Vol. 269. p 62-70. Sage Publications, Inc. May, 1950.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1027818
Pardon, George Frederick. The Handbook of Billiars with the History of the Side-Stroke The Rules of
the Games, and A Chapter on Bagatelle. George Routledge and Sons. 1865.
http://books.google.com/books?id=00UVAAAAYAAJ
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