BINGO PINBALLS

 

Pingames and Gambling
Free Games


Russ Jensen
Flashlight - 1935
Another important event, which affected the pinball/gambling connection, occurred early in 1935 with the introduction of "free games" to pinball design. As I have stated, in the early Thirties pinball games were essentially divided into two types, "payouts" and "novelty games". In an effort to come up with a way to award pinball players for their skill, without direct payouts, a young man invented a new device whose concept was to have a lasting effect of the pinball industry, even today.

This man, as the story goes, was a young assistant to pinball pioneer Harry Williams named Bill Belluh. The device he invented and patented, and which harry helped him perfect, was the "free-play coin mechanism" which allowed a player, making a certain high score in a game, to restart the game without inserting a coin; thus awarding him with a "free game". This idea was introduced in mid 1935 on Rockola's FLASH and then began to appear on pingames by most manufacturers. "Free-game pinballs" became the most common type of pingames from that time on and are the only type generally in use today.


Russ Jensen
Flashlight Instructions
These new "free-play" pingames became a third class of pinball game which could be operated legally in most territories where "payouts" were strictly forbidden. These games gave the players something to "shoot for", namely a "free game". But, as we shall see, even these "free games" came under attack by the courts and eventually were outlawed in certain jurisdictions.

As "free play pinball" developed in the mid to late Thirties, most had the capability of awarding more than one free game (or "replay", as they became known) during a given game, and the machines contained some form of "totalizer" mechanism to keep track of, and indicate to the player, how many replay "credits" he was entitled to. In early 1937 Bally came out with a game called SKIPPER (a new version of their hit game BUMPER) which combined "free play" and "payout" features in one machine.


Russ Jensen
Flashlight Instructions
SKIPPER had a free game register on the backboard which showed the player how many "free games" he had accumulated. The player could either play these games one by one as "replays" or, by pushing a button hidden underneath the game's cabinet, cause the machine to subtract his "free game" credits from the indicator and pay him one coin for each credit by means of a payout mechanism which would dispense coins through a hole, also located underneath the cabinet. This game could thus be operated as a "payout" in "payout territories" or as a "free play" machine (by disabling the payout mechanism) in "free game territories". I also imagine that SKIPPER was even occasionally operated in areas where payouts were illegal, by paying out secretly using it's hidden mechanism.

Even though few games (SKIPPER may even have been the only one) were made with both payout and free game features, the idea of installing a button underneath the cabinet for subtracting free game credits became a standard feature on most "free play" pinballs until the early fifties, but more about that later.

This button allowed free play pingames to be used for gambling, either in territories where it was allowed, or "under the table" in other areas. In both cases a player earning replay credits would approach the owner of the establishment where the game was located, who in turn would pay the player a certain amount for each credit indicated on the replay indicator (usually a nickel, the price of one play) and then erase the replays using the concealed button. A player could, of course, play some or all of his credits as "free games" if he wished, as was done by players in locations where payouts were not offered.

Since this method of "paying out" on free play machines involved the location owner as the "paying agent", a method had to be devised for keeping track of how many replays were redeemed for cash so that he and the game's owner (the coin machine operator) could determine their split of the "profits" from the machine. This was accomplished by the manufacturer installing a "payout meter" inside each game which tallied (on a odometer-like counter) the number of free games erased using the under-cabinet button (or "replay knock-off button", as it came to be called). It was this "knock-off button", and that "meter", that made possible the use of free play pingames for gambling purposes.

So, by the mid to late 1930s there were essentially three types of pingames being produced: "direct payout" machines, always used for gambling; "free play" or "replay" machines, which could either be used for gambling (using location owner payoffs and the "knock-off button") or for strictly free play operation; and the so called "novelty" games which neither awarded cash nor replays.

Many of the games manufactured in the late Thirties and early Forties could be "switched" between "free play" and "novelty" modes of operation by the operator changing a "control plug" inside the backboard. Even "novelty" games, which had no internal mechanisms to support gambling uses, could still be used for gambling either by "side betting" between players, or by high score payoffs made by the location owner. Let's face it, if people want to gamble on any game, they will.


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