How to Become an Expert Pinball Player

Series Summary

Pinball machines did not start out as entertainment for the masses, but as a scientific experiment designed to study the effects of casinos on the morale of the American people. Concerned about the possible negative influence of gambling after it was legalized in the early 1930’s, president Franklin D. Roosevelt called for an investigation. Scientists from several California and Nevada universities banded together in order to study how overexposure to games of chance and the garish environment surrounding them contributed to addiction and the “degradation of self-worth and family values.” These researchers conceived of a “Las Vegas under glass,” wherein the marquees, flashing lights and manic sounds of Sin City would be recreated in a table-sized glass case. Inside of this case, lab rats would battle electrified flippers and bumpers to get their food rewards. A certain blinking arrow might lead to a tasty treat or a bat to the head, depending on the whims of the researchers.

As anticipated by these scientists, the flashing lights and frantic sounds had a hypnotic effect on this “rat pack” of test subjects, causing them to frequent the food stops which primarily dished out electric shocks as often, if not more so than the ones which offered a sure-fire snack. Soon, they lost all sense of purpose and would simply stumble back and forth between food stations. In order to gauge the desire of the test subjects to remain in this disoriented state, researchers hit upon the idea of placing a rat of the opposite sex just beyond the box, guarded by two large flippers operated by the scientists. Though the rats initially appeared to gravitate toward their lust in spite of the blows administered by the exit flippers, they seemed just as preoccupied by the bells, buzzers and lights of the opposite part of the case, especially when dosed with small drops of alcohol. Eventually they would give up all will to move and let themselves be batted about like a furry ball.

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Leo Daniels world champion video game and pinball player here for Expert Village. So, you want to play pinball? Pinball is a dying sport but still very fun to play. It's getting harder and harder to find a good machine to play within our cage but they are out there and well worth the search. Let's start with the credits, what's cost effective to you? Some machines cost fifty cents and some are up to seventy-five cents now. But, usually offer an extra credit if you insert two dollars in at once. What you want to do if you're going to play multiple players is make sure you push the credit button the correct number of times for number of players. For example; if you're going to play four players you press the start button four times, you got four players. Some machines offer up to six players. What a lot of people don't know if you are on your first ball all machines since 1980 you can press the start button again safely and it won't start the machine over you can actually add another player without messing up your game. The first thing you want to do when you walk up to a machine if you're not familiar with it they usually have a instruction card here and I'm going to flip this over. It has all the instructions on the game and you want to be able to read that kind of gives you what to do how to do it. Each machine is different in rules of play and making the shots that's a very detailed thing to do and we are going to go into that next."