Left Outlane Kickbacks

Left outlane kickbacks are Kickback mechanisms built into the left of the two Outlanes: a solenoid at the foot of the lane fires the ball back up onto the playfield instead of letting it reach the drain.^[1] This is the ordinary home of the device,^[2] and a ruleset that lights “the kickback” without saying which one usually means this one.

The fitting has been in continuous service since the Electromechanical years. Bally used it through the late 1960s and 1970s, it became a staple of the solid-state era on machines such as High Speed (1986, Williams), and Jersey Jack Pinball still builds it into current games. Its relatives are variations on the same rescue rather than on its position: Magnetic Kickbacks pull the ball clear with an electromagnet rather than striking it, Subway Kickbacks swallow it and return it somewhere else on the playfield, and Virtual Kickbacks dispense with the hardware and do the whole thing in software.