Saddle & Turf

Despite its pinball-style cabinet, Saddle & Turf, produced by H. C. Evans & Company of Chicago in 1953, is not actually a pinball machine. It is classified as a 'flasher' game — a payout device for location gambling that used a three-digit replay mechanism, housed in a cabinet styled to resemble contemporary pinball equipment. It is documented here for clarification, to distinguish it from true pinball titles.

The game has a horse-racing theme and accommodates up to seven players, with backglass artwork explaining that 'numbers in outer circles indicate player's points.' Players could choose 5-cent or 10-cent play. Evans is known to have produced at least two distinct cabinet versions of this game, differing in backglass trim (white versus mirrored), the direction the horses face on the front cabinet art, and the placement and style of the coin mechanism — one of which was marketed as the 'Club' model, though which version actually carried that designation is still debated, as period sources conflict.

Because Saddle & Turf is fundamentally a payout/flasher device rather than a skill-based pinball game, it holds more interest as a piece of coin-op gambling history than as a pinball collectible in the traditional sense.