Pinball. The classic game that’s played with only two buttons. Well, two buttons and a spring. Even though the game itself is simple, the history is complex. The game dates back to around 200 years ago, has had many evolutions, and was even illegal to play at one point!

Before pinball there was the game “Bagatelle” - a French bar game that was played in a somewhat similar fashion to pool. The players would hit the Bagatelle ball with Sticks. The ball would bounce off of pins, until eventually landing in a compartment. These compartments would indicate the score the player received, Pinball was later named due to these pins!  This was all in the late 1800’s. There's no singular inventor of the game. It just evolved from earlier and more rudimentary European games.

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In the 1930’s, the first machine that would be recognized as a pinball machine was created by the company Automatic Industries in Youngstown, Ohio. It was coin-operated, had an incline, and even used a spring to launch the ball. This version had no flippers like modern pinball, and was called a “whiffle board". It was mostly based on luck. Several other pinball-similar games were invented in the years following the whiffle board, but it wasn't until 1936 that the name “pinball” was coined. To this day, game historians aren’t sure who first coined the name. Following World War II, flippers were added to the game in the year 1947, changing the game entirely.

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Credit to who popularized the game can be given to a few different individuals/corporations: Montague Redgrave for enhancing Bagatelle; Automatic Industries for inventing the first pinball-ish game; Raymond Maloney for mass-producing another pinball-like game; or the company Mirco Games for being the first to add lights and a microprocessor to the game.

Pinball remains the reigning champion of retro games, predating Tetris by decades and even making Pong look novel and original! It has seen many changes since its evolutionary inception, but the foundations have been the same throughout. The game is played with two buttons and one spring. That’s all it takes to play Pinball.

 

Some interesting facts:

- Pinball was banned for a short time in 1942 in New York City. This was implemented due to various gambling laws. This outlawing of the game spread to other major cities throughout the United States. It wasn't until 1974 that the game was re-legalized in the state of California, and in 1976 in New York.

- In 1933, the first pinball game was powered by electricity. Electricity allowed for various battery-powered buzzers and bells to be added into the game. Not only that, but a powered clock-counter was used to keep score.

- There are myriads of slang terms when it comes to pinball. For example, there's the “plunger", which is just the spring that launches the ball onto the board. There's the “knocker” - a solenoid device that hits the inside of the machine’s main body, which indicates that the player has won a free game.

- The largest pinball tournament was held in Pittsburgh, PA in 2019. There were nearly 1000 players who participated (987 to be exact).

 

Works cited: 

Stafford, Jay. “Whiffle Board.” The Internet Pinball Database, https://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=3552.

Betson. “The Founding of the Flippers: Your Guide to the History of Pinball.” Blog, 11 Mar. 2025, https://www.betson.com/history-of-pinball/.

"Pinball"! [r/pinball]. Reddit, n.d., https://www.reddit.com/r/pinball/.