Description: Gottlieb Jacks Open pinball. Just like the Gottlieb Lucky Hand pinball. Lots of drop targets across the top of the playfield. They also made this game in an Electronic format called Jacks to Open (system80). Similar card concept to the 4 player Gottlieb Royal Flush pinball. This again was another popular Gottlieb pinball design, and was recycled for a total of five games. The bank of nine drop targets allows the player to go for particular types of card hands, as dictated on the playfield field light inserts. Three pop bumpers and two slignshots, and lots of rollover switches. They made 2975 Gottlieb Jacks Open replay pinballs, and 610 Gottlieb Lucky Hand add-a-ball pinball machines. You can read up on the restoration I did on a 1977 Gottlieb Jack Open here.

The basic rules to Jacks Open are simple, but hard to achieve. Down the center of the playfield are card hands. The one that's lit is the hand the player needs to knock down via the drop targets. So first up is a Two Jacks (a Pair). The player needs to just hit the two Jack drop targets, then all the drop targets reset, and the game advances to the next hand (three Queens). Now the player needs to hit the three Queen drop targes, and the game advances to Full House. After full house, the game resets the drop targets, but only puts up the red A-K-Q-J-10 drop targets for the Royal Flush (all the black targets stay down). When the player gets the Royal Flush, they win a Replay (free game). The game will then reset the Royal Flush targets, and the player may try to win yet another game. In addition, if the player makes the four topmost rollovers, the game automatically completes the current hand, and reset the drop targets for the next hand. These top rollovers also turn on the 5000 point outlanes. Score cards ZIP'ed and in Photoshop format can be downloaded here (5meg).

If you have a Gottlieb Jacks Open pinball for sale, please contact me at cfh@provide.net