Kids Have Been Banned From Playing Pinball In South Carolina Since 1959, Until Now
For the first time in nearly 70 years, children and teenagers in South Carolina can legally play pinball. The governor signed a law last month removing the arcade game from the state's list of so-called status offenses, crimes that apply only to minors, following a decade-long legislative effort to repeal a prohibition that dated back to 1959 and had placed pinball in the same legal category as running away from home, loitering in a billiard room, and gaining admission to a theater by false identification. The ban originated during an era when pinball was considered a gambling-adjacent activity associated with crime and truancy, with store owners awarding prizes to winners and onlookers betting on where the ball might land. When manufacturers added flippers to the sides of machines in the late 1940s, transforming the game into something requiring genuine skill, most states gradually repealed their bans, particularly after a 1974 California Supreme Court decision formally classified pinball as a game of skill rather than chance. South Carolina was the last holdout.
The law was never enforced, and multiple state senators cheerfully acknowledged having broken it. Senator Ed Sutton, a 42-year-old from North Charleston, told legislators he considers himself a habitual offender because he takes his 6-year-old son to play pinball at a local brewery at least once a week, noting that his son particularly enjoys the machines featuring the X-Men and Ghostbusters. The bill passed with a single no vote from Senator Rex Rice, who did not object to pinball itself but said he was haunted by the memory of a two-word budget amendment in 1986 that accidentally unleashed the video poker industry on the state, and he simply did not want to find out later that the legislature had done something it did not mean to do. House Minority Leader Todd Rutherford, who championed the repeal for years, said he had been inspired to file the bill when his 8-year-old niece pointed out during a visit to the Statehouse that children were not legally allowed to play pinball. He said he was somewhat in disbelief and immediately knew it had to change. South Carolina is now the last state to repeal its pinball ban for minors, and the world's top-ranked pinball player is 19 years old.
