From back-room rebel to retro royalty: Pinball is nudging 95 years old — and is more popular than ever

Back in 1930s America someone decided watching a tiny metal ball rattle around a slanted wooden box just might be brilliant. Early pinball tables had no flippers, barely any control and just enough chaos to distract a nation deep in the Great Depression. But when times are tight, creativity gets loud - Jazz was booming, Art Deco was everywhere, and pinball was quietly rolling onto the scene.

Fast-forward almost a century and pinball is nudging its 95th birthday, enjoying a full-blown renaissance. Modern machines now glow with screens, soundtracks and storylines, while vintage tables command eye-watering prices from collectors who know their bumpers from their bonus lanes.

But how did we get here? And what about the next century of pinball?

Pockets and Prohibition

It all started with Baffle Ball, Gottlieb’s 1931 hit - a simple pin table inspired by French bagatelle. Cheap to play and even cheaper to buy, operators often made their money back in a single day. Production ramped up to hundreds of machines daily, waitlists stretched into the tens of thousands, and competitors like Bally and Williams jumped in fast. Bigger tables arrived, like Ballyhoo, pockets were added to the play surface and suddenly pinball wasn’t just a novelty - it was a phenomenon.

But not everyone loved it — the fun police were on patrol. By 1942, America’s war on gambling turned its sights on pinball.

Electricity had been added in 1933, bumpers in 1936, and the game’s reputation grew murkier by the minute. New York’s mayor led a dramatic crackdown, branding machines the tools of organised crime. Police raids seized thousands, others were smashed to pieces on the spot. For decades, pinball lived in a legal grey area, half entertainment, half alleged vice.

The man who saved the game

Then came the flipper in 1947, the moment pinball became less luck, more skill.

Yet bans lingered until one Roger Sharpe, often dubbed the original pinball wizard, walked into a New York City Council hearing in 1976 and proved his point with a perfectly called shot. The council relented, the ban lifted, and pinball’s golden age kicked into gear.

If you want the cinematic version, the docudrama Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game tells that story - a 28-year-old journalist, a courtroom showdown and the ultimate ball save. It sounds absurd, but that moment flipped the narrative: pinball wasn’t a shady gamble anymore, it was a legit game of skill.

Manufacturers wasted no time shaking off the old stigma. Creativity exploded. Gottlieb led the charge, while machines cheekily nodded at authority without poking the bear too hard. The very table used in Sharpe’s demonstration using the deceptively named Bank Shot became a quiet icon. If you knew, you knew.

The late 70s leaned into rebellion. Themes got louder, artwork bolder. Bally released Evel Knievel in 1977, then pushed boundaries again with a Playboy machine a year later. These tables today are the Holy Grail, collectors’ gold - even their backglass panels sell for serious cash.

Technically, everything was changing too. Mechanical score reels gave way to digital displays, electronic sounds replaced bells, and arcades started to glow like futuristic playgrounds.

But more change was on the horizon. Just as pinball peaked, video games crashed the party. Companies merged, some vanished, and for a while the machines drifted into the dusty corners of arcades - still alive, just waiting for their second act.

A modern renaissance

Enter Stern. Not exactly newcomers, being part of Chicago’s pinball lineage for decades. But over the past ten years they’ve driven the modern revival.

Their machines come loaded with licences like Star Wars, 007, The Beatles, Godzilla and Stranger Things, turning pinball into an immersive, story-driven experience under glass. Each table is still handmade, often costing over £12k, with limited editions pushing £20k - and they rarely stay in stock for long.

Peter Heath of Kent’s Pinball Parlour – finders, fixers and all-round pinball obsessives - sums it up, “One minute everyone’s chasing the future and old stuff’s worthless, then suddenly nostalgia hits and people want the good old days again. We deal purely in retro, so we’re always looking back at the classics. Come down to Margate - the showroom’s full of surprises.”

Stern’s Zach Sharpe, son of Roger, grew up surrounded by the machines that shaped the industry.

“I own a very rare game called Cyclopes,” he says. “Only 400 were ever made, and between me, my brother and my dad we’ve got almost one per cent of the total run in the family.”

For him, pinball’s appeal is simple: “Once you connect with it, it never really leaves you. Stern keeps pushing what’s possible, building whole worlds inside these machines.”

And yes, skill still matters.

“There’s an old saying: if you’re not tilting, you’re not trying,” says Zach. “But no machine lets you win by tilting. You’ll lose bonuses, and on older tables you could end the whole game.”

Despite its rebellious past, pinball today is surprisingly universal. Collectors chase machines for their art, their nostalgia or just the thrill of fixing something mechanical. Newbies fall for those alluring flashing lights and that unmistakable ding. Different reasons, same obsession.

Which brings us to now. Once contraband, pinball lurked in smoky back rooms like a chrome-plated speakeasy. Today it’s enjoying an unlikely renaissance, with arcades across the country once again dedicated space to tables new and old, while gamers — looking to escape the digital confines of their favourite hobby — turn to the physical fun of a rattling pinball machine. Maybe it’s the tactile chaos, maybe it’s the nostalgia, or maybe we’re all just tired of staring at flat screens.

Either way, there’s something irresistible about a game that lights up, dings and clatters at volume and occasionally rewards you with a free ball - proof that sometimes the best way forward is backward, preferably with flippers.

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