Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: Today In History with The Retrospectors
Episode: Let's Legalise Pinball
Description: With a single, deliberate shot, Roger Sharpe played pinball for the council of the New York City Council chamber on 2 April 1976, theatrically overturning a 34-year ban on the game by proving it could be a game of skill.
The city’s censorship of the game had its roots in the economic strain of the Great Depression and the moral recalibrations following Prohibition, when pinball machines, often found in arcades and bars, became associated with petty gambling and organised crime. New York’s mayor, Fiorello LaGuardia, made them a particular focus of his anti-corruption campaigns, arguing that they explo...