All fans of pinball machines can enjoy them in their clubs with their friends, in different places of leisure and even in their own homes. But, do you think this has always been the case?
Pinball machines were banned from the 1940s to the 1970s in the major cities of the United States, coinciding with those where the game was invented, such as Chicago, Los Angeles or New York.
Reasons for the prohibition.
– Pinball is a game of chance. The flippers were not invented until a few years after the prohibition. So the players hit and tipped the machine to direct the trajectory and gravity of the ball.
– Many «legislators» believed that pinball machines were related to the mafia.
– They were stealing American children. Many schoolchildren invested their ten cents in enjoying the game of these machines, which for many, was a waste of time.
– Mayor Fiorello La Guardia told the police that his main job was to destroy all the pinball machines and arrest their owners. For this reason, the game of pinballs was disputed in hiding.

May 15, 1940: Urban F. Emme, chief clerk of City Marshal’s office, welds sledge hammer on confiscated pinball and other marble machines ordered destroyed by Municipal Court judges. This photo was published in the May 16, 1940 Los Angeles Times.
– During the War, like all the American industry, the factories of the United States were destined to the production of weapons, so the production of pinballs was significantly reduced.
End of the ban.
In 1976 the pinball machines became legal again. Roger Sharpe, showed that pinball was not a game of chance, but skill (one of the reasons why pinballs were prohibited). For this and in a situation of tension in which he was surrounded by the press, political positions and a game that he did not dominate, he knew how to get out and achieve what years ago others, had forbidden, the legality of pinballs.
In spite of everything, there are currently places where it is still not possible to play pinballs:
- In Nashville, where children under 18 are totally prohibited from playing with pinball machines.
- Ocean City (New Jersey) where on Sundays exclusively, you can not enjoy these fantastic machines.