Following the lead of the G-Men who took hatchets to barrels of moonshine in front of flashing news cameras during Prohibition, LaGuardia and other police chiefs assembled the press and smashed pinball machines to bits with sledgehammers.

They confiscated 2,000 machines, believed to be a fifth of the city’s count. Copper, aluminum and nickel were among the materials used to manufacture pinball machines, and LaGuardia believed it “infinitely preferable that the metal in these evil contraptions be manufactured into arms and bullets which can be used to destroy our foreign enemies.”Īfter the city council approved LaGuardia’s ban on pinball machines in public spaces on January 21, 1942, police squads raided candy stores, bowling alleys, bars and amusement centers. Pinball was increasingly seen as a waste of materials-not to mention time-while America was at war. O’Brien smashes illegal pinball machines in a warehouse in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, New York, 1949.įollowing the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, the mayor and other pinball opponents wrapped their cause in the flag. New York City Police Commissioner William P. The mayor said the pinball industry took in millions of dollars a year from the “pockets of school children in the form of nickels and dimes given them as lunch money.” After cracking down on illegal slot machines, LaGuardia made prohibition of the “insidious nickel-stealers” the target of his next crusade. New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia was among those who believed that pinball bred crime and juvenile delinquency.

Criminal interests were said to control a large segment of the industry, and pinball was even linked to the notorious “Murder, Inc.” gang. It didn’t help pinball’s image that most of the machines were manufactured in Chicago, a hotbed of organized crime during the Great Depression. While law enforcement and civic groups looked askance at pinball for its gambling connections, churches and school boards also argued that it corrupted the morals of America’s children by encouraging them to steal coins, skip school in order to play and even go hungry by wasting their money on the frivolous pursuit. Players gambled on games, and operators handed out prizes from free games and gum all the way up to jewelry and chinaware. Except for tipping the machines, players were at the mercy of the random bounce of the ball. Before the advent of flippers in 1947, pinball was a considerably different game from what it is today. Ever since pinball came of age during the Great Depression with the production of the first coin-operated machine in 1931, it had been viewed by many as a menace to society.

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