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Posted on 06/21/2026 1:56:07 PM PDT by DFG
For the first time in nearly 70 years, children and teenagers in South Carolina can legally play pinball.
A law the governor signed last month removed the arcade game from the list of so-called status offenses outlawed for anyone under the age of 18, following a decade-long effort. The original ban was never enforced, but it remained a source of anxiety for law-abiding business owners, supporters of the bill said.
Pinball gained popularity during the Great Depression as cheap, accessible entertainment — which critics called unskilled gambling tied to crime. Players released a ball that bounced into holes with different scores. Store owners often offered prizes to winners, and onlookers bet on where the ball might land.
Some opponents of the game also worried about children skipping school or spending their lunch money to play or make bets.
In the late 1940s, pinball manufacturers started adding the iconic flippers to the sides of the machines, adding an element of skill.
Still, many states outlawed the games because of their associations with gambling, including South Carolina, which banned the game for minors in 1959.
The new version of pinball with flippers grew in popularity throughout the 1960s and '70s, even with bans in place. A 1974 California Supreme Court decision classified the game as one of skill and not chance, which led to states removing pinball prohibitions.
South Carolina was the holdout.
Playing pinball remained illegal for anyone under the age of 18, in the same category of offenses as running away, "loitering in a billiard room" or "gaining admission to a theater by false identification."
Legislation to remove pinball from that list has been proposed repeatedly since 2015, with no luck — until this session.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.com ...
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Do kids even play pinball anymore? I remember playing it as a kid in the 80’s.
What wizardry is this?
Every since I was a young boy
I played the silver ball
Now you’ve done it. Now I have to post this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHc7bR6y06M
Dunno but there has to be a twist
I say that any boob kin take
And shove a ball in a pocket.
And they call that sloth.
The first big step on the road
To the depths of deg-ra-Day—
I say, first, medicinal wine from a teaspoon,
Then beer from a bottle.
An’ the next thing ya know,
Your son is playin’ for money
In a pinch-back suit.
And list’nin to some big out-a-town Jasper
Hearin’ him tell about horse-race gamblin’.
Not a wholesome trottin’ race, no!
But a race where they set down right on the horse!
Like to see some stuck-up jockey’boy
Sittin’ on Dan Patch? Make your blood boil?
Well, I should say.
Oh, that can not be.
Everyone knows that before the 1970s all children only had home packed lunches with maybe a few buying a carton of milk.
From Soho down to Brighton,
I must have played them all
From the Tom Jones Show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpGegoE3Kik
(Keith looking pretty spiffy there)
They’ll be hanging around the malt shop playing hookie.
I grew up in South Carolina. When I was about 6, there was a Shell gas station down the street from us that I wasn’t allowed to enter. There was a pinball machine in there. I had to stay in the car when my dad bought gas. This was in the early 1960s.
And alive.
Is there anyone under 18 who even knows what a pinball machine is?
This is like legalizing magic lantern shows.
They were more afraid of you playing pinball than being kidnapped?
😆
People do tend to look spiffier when they're alive.
This is a State issue. Supremes should have refused to hear it.
It is a slippery slope. Next thing you know they’ll be playing asteroids, joust, and centipede.
Oh yes we got trouble, trouble, trouble!
With a “T”! Gotta rhyme it with “P”!
And that stands for...Pinball!!!
wait a min...
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