Review: Bragg Brothers' Pinball Depicts Repeal of the Game's Ban in New York City
Politicians in the last century accused pinball of being mob activity.
Many things were banned in New York City for much of the 20th century but are legal today. Pornography. Recreational marijuana use. Pinball?
As if his namesake airport isn't bad enough, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia led the crusade against pinball in 1941 on the supposed grounds that it was a mob-backed gateway to get kids hooked on gambling. Pinball was seen as a game of chance, not skill. La Guardia told cops to make the seizure and destruction of pinball machines their "top priority," and cities across the country followed his lead.
Reason's own Bragg brothers, Austin and Meredith, directed and wrote a fantastic film about the wonderfully mustachioed man most responsible for overturning the ban in the 1970s, Roger Sharpe. Available to stream on various services, Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game is a biopic that tells how Sharpe's pinball obsession intertwined with his struggling writing career and romantic life. The New Yorker's Richard Brody declared it better than all of the best picture Oscar nominees for last year.
Sharpe's story shows how a few people can nix stupid laws (though it helps to have on your side some "unicorns": politicians who actually change their mind based on evidence).
Yet, the ban's legacy lives on. Though rarely enforced, some laws banning pinball are still on the books. Getting them repealed can be just as hard as getting a high score: South Carolina is on its third legislative effort in the last decade to repeal a law prohibiting minors from playing pinball.
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I would like to know what kind of idiot thinks that pinball is a game of chance.
Someone with no skills.
Yup – nor any aesthetic appreciation.
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That would be the town idiot that doesn’t know the difference between one with, and one without, flippers. The former was a game of chance and was banned; the latter you could find (next to the no betting allowed signs of course) and play (for money of course ) almost everywhere in NYC in the 40’s 50’s 60’s 70’s (‘…he’s a pinball wizard….got such a subtle wrist…’) 80’s.
In the 70s, many Oxford colleges, including my own, had a pinball machine in the JCR. Ours was Magic City, a classic Williams game, which biased me in favour of Williams machines ever since.
It arguably was before replay levers were introduced, which is when the bans go back to. Back then pinball played almost like Pachinko. But you could still influence play by how far back you pulled the injection plunger, and skill at shaking the machine without voiding the game.
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I’d prefer that minors not be present when I’m playing. They should learn to curse from their friends and family, not from me when I get guttered by Junkyard or Addams Family.