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- In-line scoring is the way a [[game-format:bingo-pinball]] machine pays: a win is three or more lit numbers standing adjacent along a row, a column or one of the two corner-to-corner diagonals of the 5x5 [[gameplay-feature:bingo-cards]], and the award climbs steeply with the length of the line — four in a row paid roughly four times what three did, and five paid 100 replays.[1][2]
The method named the machines before the card did. When the Johnson Act closed interstate commerce to the [[game-format:one-ball]] payout games, [[manufacturer:bally]] answered with a five-ball design that asked the player to light a row of numbers in a grid printed on the [[gameplay-feature:backglasses]]; the trade called these in-line games, and players, reading the grid for what it looked like, renamed them bingo pinballs.[3][4][5]
## Which line, not just how many
Early machines drew no distinction between one three-in-line and another.[6] Painting the lines in colors changed that: with red, yellow and green carrying separate odds, three in red might pay 8 where three in green paid 64.[7] That gap is the reason the card-moving features exist — a player holding a cheap winner can spend more coins on [[gameplay-feature:magic-squares]] or [[gameplay-feature:magic-lines]] and drag the same lit numbers into an expensive one.
The shape of a scoring line was not fixed either. The two long diagonals through the card counted on most machines, and where a machine allowed diagonals at all, any diagonal run of three or more scored; a few added extra short diagonals, and a few laid out cards of 3x6 or 4x6 holes that paid for six in a row.[8][9]
## Displacement
[[gameplay-feature:section-scoring]] arrived beside in-line scoring rather than instead of it: on a [[gameplay-feature:magic-screen]] machine the screen's home position scores lines, and sliding it left trades them away for colored sections.[10] The clean break came with [[gameplay-feature:mystic-lines]], from *[[title:border-beauty]]* (1965, Bally), which took the section idea and dropped line scoring altogether.[11]
4. Pinball Collectors Resource — http://www.pinballcollectorsresource.com/russ_files/bally.html These "In-Line" games, as they were first known, used 5 (or more) balls, instead of 1, and required the player to light a row of 3 or more numbers on the backglass in a 5 by 5 matrix in the form of a common "bingo card".
6. Bingo Pinballs — https://bingo.cdyn.com/machines/features.html Most early bingo's made no distinction on how an in-line scoring win was achieved. When colored lines were added, though, it became more important how the in-line score was formed on the card.
7. Bingo Pinballs — https://bingo.cdyn.com/machines/features.html Triple deck odds made the payout for 3,4, or 5-in-line depend on the colored line the win was in. For example, 3-in-line in red might pay 8, but three-in-line in green could pay 64.
8. Bingo Pinballs — https://bingo.cdyn.com/machines/features.html In most bingos with in-line scoring, the five number diagonal lines forming a big X through the main card counted. Games with diagonal scores generally allowed any diagonal line three numbers or longer to score.
10. Bingo Pinballs — https://bingo.cdyn.com/machines/features.html In the screen home position, the standard three color in-line scoring is available. As the screen is slid left, the in-line scoring is replaced with section scoring.
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- in-line-scoring
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