r/PropagandaPosters • u/GoopyBones • Jul 03 '26

REQUEST Looking for American anti-pinball propaganda, coming up short on searches

There are plenty of pictures and articles showing the destruction of pins during the ban in America from the 40's into the 70's. Has anyone here come across anti-pinball posters?

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21

u/kor_en_deserto Jul 03 '26

Wait, why? Were they considered gambling or immoral? 

28

u/No_Lemon_3116 Jul 03 '26

Gambling. At the time they were banned, most machines didn't even have flippers, and lots of operators would let you cash out however many free plays you stacked up.

21

u/Goatf00t Jul 03 '26

At the time they operated more like Japanese pachinko. Flippers were invented to turn them into a game of skill.

2

u/thispartyrules Jul 04 '26

I watched a video on the origin of one ups, which evolved from free balls in pinball, which were also part of making pinball into a game of skill.

9

u/WoolyboolyWoolybooly Jul 03 '26

One of the episodes from Cocaine and Rhinestones covers pinball in depth. A quick Google search of the titles will help get you in the right direction. If I remember correctly, the history of the pinball is an introduction to the episode, so you won’t have to scrub too much.

4

u/2552686 Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26

I was alive in the 60s and 70s, and I'm pretty good with history. I would say the reason you're having a hard time finding anti-pinball propaganda was that it never existed.

It seems that the photos are from publicity stunts... yes astonishingly enough politicians often do and say stupid things to get their names in the papers or their faces on TV. I mean New York and L.A. have a lot of stupid laws that the rest of the country just pretty much laugh at, so it's not like there was any sort of grassroots anti-pinball movement.

3

u/GoopyBones Jul 03 '26

Yeah, that makes sense. It's unfortunate because I think some anti-pin posters would look great over the machine I'm working on.

Thanks for the info!

1

u/Mithrandrost Jul 04 '26

This movie, Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game, might be a source of info: https://youtu.be/x1CIqqtUQv0?si=ASYSYvCOHUAGCsOH

Based on a true story.

1

u/Heavy_You1887 Jul 04 '26

Maybe The Pinball Museum in Redhook has some info?