Electra-Pool

Electra-Pool, designed by Ed Krynski with artwork by Roy Parker and manufactured by Gottlieb in October 1965, is a single-player electro-mechanical add-a-ball game with a billiards theme. It occupies an interesting place in Gottlieb history: it is the Italian version of Gottlieb's 1965 'Flipper Pool', and the first Gottlieb model made specifically for Italy, created after a new Italian law introduced in June 1965 forbade replays. Gottlieb documentation confirms a production run of 1,500 units.

At its core, Electra-Pool simulates the excitement of pool. Players use two flippers to shoot at seven standup targets, with three pop bumpers and two slingshots keeping the ball in motion. The machine's showpiece is its mechanical backbox animation: at the start of a game, the billiard table in the backglass shows all balls lit while the mechanical balls above are reset out of view; hitting a lit numbered target on the playfield turns off the corresponding lit ball and mechanically drops that ball into view.

The maximum displayed score is 9,999 points, though it was not uncommon for local operators to modify games for 5-digit scoring, most often with a fake trailing "0" but sometimes with a real added counter. With Roy Parker's classic billiards artwork and its clever backbox mechanism, Electra-Pool is a charming example of Gottlieb's mid-1960s add-a-ball games and a notable artifact of pinball's adaptation to European regulations.