Electric Poker

Electric Poker, manufactured by H. C. Evans & Company of Chicago in 1929, is an early electro-mechanical rolldown game built around a playing-cards and poker theme. As a rolldown machine, its gameplay differs from the flipper-based pinball that later came to define the genre -- flippers weren't introduced to pinball until the late 1940s -- with players instead rolling or dropping balls down the playfield to land in poker-hand-scoring positions.

Specific details about Electric Poker's individual features are sparse in the historical record, but as an H.C. Evans product from 1929, it represents the company's early work in coin-operated amusement games, years before Evans became a notable name in electro-mechanical pinball manufacturing through the 1930s and 1940s.

Electric Poker's design and artwork likely reflect the playing-card and poker imagery popular in period amusement games, though specific visual details are not documented. As an early example of a poker-themed rolldown game, it offers a window into the amusement machines that preceded and influenced the development of pinball as we know it today.