Pinball

A row of pinball machines at the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Pinball is a type of arcade game. In pinball, the player tries to score points by manipulating one or more metal balls on a playfield inside a glass-covered case called a pinball machine. The main objective of the game is to score as many points as the player can. Other objectives are to play as long as possible (by earning extra balls and keeping the ball in play as long as possible) and to earn free games (known as replays).

From the 1940s through the 1970s pinball was banned in many American cities because it was thought to be a game of chance and therefore was considered gambling. The ban stopped in New York City in 1976, when Roger Sharpe, a player renowned for his talent, played so well in front of the City Council that he convinced them that pinball was indeed a game of skill, not just of luck.

Pinball Media

• 

  Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 1991 pinball machine designed by Steve Ritchie

• 

  Boys in Niger with a self-made pinball game

• 

  Billard japonais, Alsace, France c. 1750–70. It already has a spring mechanism to propel the ball, 100 years before Montague Redgrave's patent.

• 

  An early pinball game without flippers, c. 1932

• 

  A clear-walled electromechanical pinball machine created by the Pacific Pinball Museum to illustrate the inner workings of a typical pinball machine

• 

  Pinball machines at the Pacific Pinball Museum

• 

  Flippers allow the player to redirect the ball.

• 

  Slingshots have rubber pads which detect the ball's impact and automatically push it away at speed.

• 

  Stationary targets detect the ball's impact and typically increment the player's score.

Other websites

• Internet Pinball Database
• Clips from Pinball Basics DVD
• #pinball on AfterNET (IRC channel all about Pinball)