Digital Commons Network^™

Pinball Wars: Slot Machines, Pinball Games, Racketeering, And Murder In Mid-Twentieth Century Rural Illinois, Benjamin Bradley

Research Papers

Pinball was seized upon by organized crime for its ability to pass as an amusement device rather than a gambling mechanism. Pinball inherited this role from slot machines, which were often disguised as novelty toys or vending machines to circumvent increasingly strict anti-gambling laws in early twentieth century America. Pinball uniquely filled the role as a gambling device because of its ability to appear as a game of skill and amusement rather than of chance and speculation.

In January of 1960, Bunice Tyner, a resident of Marion, Illinois was murdered in what the local press dubbed a pinball war. His …