European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 20, 1968, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Show me a pinball machine i can t beat. Watch this. By Charles Graham staff writer in spite of a carnival ancestry dating from 1931 and an image in the eyes of american motherhood that ranks it right in the Gutter with Pool Halls and Beer joints the flashing pop Ping pinball machine continues to be a Rainbow coloured attraction that has stretched its Flipper action arms around the world. With 60 per cent of the 50,000  pinball machines exported yearly the five Ball game can be played in practically every Coin from pesos to yen and always with the same Chal Lenge to make the tawdry noisy machine with an infuriating sense of Fate yield a free game. Whether or not the steely eyed fast fingered fighter reaches that Pinnacle of Success for which All players strive depends More on the generosity of the pinball s owner than on the challenger Mastery of the machine. I can tighten those machines up so tight won t nobody get a game said one lanky manager of a Penny arc Adein Newark . He s right of course though manufacturers generally agree that the Best ratio is two to one one free game for every two paid for. The Bally manufacturing co., which claims to have made the first commercially successful pinball machine admits that most owners use a higher paid games to free plays ratio. We introduce 10 to 15 new games each year said a Bally spokesman. Each one is designed to give the average player about three minutes of  if the game is " tightened up to reduce the player s chances for a is photos by Victor Damon Page 12 the stars and stripes then you bump for the big one. See of no. Not a tilt All you gotta do is use them flippers and a Little ,." Cov Kiich s Mori fun10 Coku free by the five balls won t take along to get Back to their nest. According to Bally the first pin Ball game was developed in the at 1920s by an advertising Salesman for billboard the circus and carnival Trade Magazine. He had a wheel of Fortun manufacturer convert a Small sized pins in a Board game to accept coins. His business was wiped out in the Stock Market crash of 1929 but in 1931 a company picked up the idea called the game Ballyhoo after a popular mag Azine of the time and within a few months had sold 50,000. The company later switched to its present name Bally. The first game was on a Board Small enough to fit on top of a Cigar counter with nine holes guarded by pins no scoreboard and one Marble. Each player got seven balls for a Penny. Of Well. I la bum another  by 193j1 Battery operated games we reproduced followed shortly by plug in Power automatic scorers free Gam awards and tilt mechanisms. After world War ii came the flippers Thum bumpers and multiple player scor i but for All the internal improvements the package design still reeks of the1930s circus Art which decorated the first one in an Industry that docs believe in psychological audience re search and whose designers Are old timers who play it by car the. Standard pictures of Bri fitly painted bathing beauties Aren t about to be replaced by now icle is from Young Whippersnappersevery once in a while the spokes Man said some new outfit starts outto make pinball games. It hires psychologists and Industrial designers audit s Goin to sweep the Field but some How it never seems to last very  the stars and stripes Page 13