Fascination

December 21, 2023

Fascination is a multiplayer arcade and carnival game that was popular starting around the 1920s. It consisted of rolling a rubber ball into holes to try to get 5-in-a-line (like BINGO). Games were played against other players, often with 20, 30 or more players, and continued until someone won. The games were all interconnected and stopped feeding the ball back to players once there was a winner – a high tech feature that prevented disputes and kept the games moving quickly. The basic concept has been used in countless amusement park and arcade games, like roll-a-ball derby games.

Fascination was popular enough that “Fascination parlors” were opened in a few locations outside of amusement parks such as the one in Times Square in the photos below. They also featured an announcer who would call the action for maximum excitement, similar to a horse race.

Like pinball, there were many legal actions against Fascination with it being considered by some a gambling game and not a game of skill. Additionally, similar to the way Pachinko still operates today in Japan, there’s evidence that winners at some locations were given either tickets or prizes that were then redeemed for cash at a “store” not far away. As other games became popular (like pinball), Fascination parlors added them and they became more like traditional arcades with Fascination as the centerpiece.

In the 1980s, possibly into the ’90s, Circus Circus in Reno, NV had Fascination and I played it as kid. On busy nights the announcer would be there. Of course, it was purely for prizes and plushies by then. Playland not at the Beach also had a small bank of Fascination machines before it closed. So did the original Playland at the Beach in San Francisco, and Chutes at the Beach which preceded it.