The Pinball Glossary: Drain, Wizard Mode, SDTM, and More

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Pinball has a language of its own, and hearing it for the first time can be baffling. This glossary collects the terms you will run into most often — around machines, in scorekeeping, and among players — explained in plain English.

The basics

Playfield — the angled surface where the game happens, covered in ramps, targets, and lights.

Flipper — the player-controlled bat that launches the ball. Most machines have two at the bottom and sometimes more up the field.

Plunger — the spring-loaded rod (or a button) that puts the ball into play at the start of each ball.

Ball — both the steel sphere and the unit of play. A standard game gives you three or five balls.

Losing the ball

Drain — losing the ball down the bottom of the playfield. To "drain" is to lose a ball.

SDTM — short for "straight down the middle," the unstoppable drain right between the flippers. The most frustrating way to lose a ball, and often the hardest to prevent.

Outlane — the lanes on the far left and right at the bottom. A ball down the outlane is lost, though a good nudge can sometimes save it.

Inlane — the lanes just inside the outlanes that feed the ball to the flippers. Balls here are safe and ready to cradle.

Control and technique

Cradle / trap — catching and holding the ball still against a raised flipper so you can aim.

Nudge — bumping the machine to influence the ball's path, used to avoid a drain.

Tilt — the penalty for nudging too hard. A tilt ends your ball and cancels your bonus. Machines usually give warnings before a full tilt.

Dead bounce — letting a center-bound ball bounce off an unraised flipper rather than risking a wild shot.

Drop catch — dropping the flipper as a fast ball arrives to kill its speed and trap it.

Scoring and modes

Mode — a timed or objective-based sequence the machine starts, usually with its own rules and scoring. Completing modes is how you build big scores on modern games.

Multiball — a phase where two or more balls are in play at once, worth big points and a lot of chaos. Keeping several balls alive at once is a skill of its own.

Wizard mode — the climactic, hard-to-reach mode that many machines hide behind completing a long list of objectives. Reaching one is a badge of honor; most players go a long time before they see their first.

Jackpot — a large scoring award, usually lit during multiball or a mode, often the goal a machine is steering you toward.

Bonus — points tallied at the end of each ball based on what you accomplished. A tilt wipes it out, which is why over-nudging hurts.

Hardware and features

Ramp — a raised track the ball travels up and over, usually a satisfying and rewarding shot.

Slingshot — the angled, rubber-tipped kickers just above the flippers that fling the ball back into play.

Bumper — the round, energetic targets (often near the top) that knock the ball around and add points.

Insert — a translucent piece set into the playfield that lights up to show status or point you at the current objective.

Kickback — a mechanism that can save a ball from an outlane by firing it back into play, if you have lit it.

Machine anatomy

Cabinet — the body of the machine that houses the playfield and electronics.

Backbox — the upright section at the back holding the display or screen and often the main artwork.

Apron — the flat panel at the bottom of the playfield below the flippers, usually with instructions or the machine's name.

Keep flipping

You do not need to memorize all of this at once — the vocabulary sinks in naturally as you play. But knowing that SDTM means an unsavable center drain, or that a wizard mode is the mountaintop worth climbing, makes the whole hobby easier to talk about and more fun to share. Keep this handy, and keep flipping.