Stern Electronics’ Hot Hand, released in 1979 and designed by the industry pioneer Harry Williams, deals players a poker-themed solid-state machine with a genuinely unusual mechanical twist. At the top of the playfield, a large flipper slowly rotates throughout the game, and a ball resting in any of the ten nearby “rollover pockets” scores points continuously until that rotating flipper knocks it loose — a clever, almost hypnotic scoring feature unlike anything on its contemporaries.

The scoring leans into its card-game theme. You build poker hands by completing card targets: a pair lights 2X bonus, three of a kind 3X, four of a kind 4X, and getting all the cards down awards a full 5X and lights the Super Bonus. Since the bonus and its multiplier carry over from ball to ball, the key to a big game is collecting plenty of cards early. Completing spades lights the spinner while diamonds boost the upper holes 10X, and combining them is the route to serious points. Smart players plunge for whichever cards they’re missing, prioritizing flushes, straights, and other hands.

A distinctive and historically interesting machine from one of pinball’s founding figures, Hot Hand pairs a fun gambling theme with that one-of-a-kind rotating flipper. For collectors who appreciate an inventive mechanic and the clean design of the early Stern solid-state era, it’s an engaging and characterful classic — a table where, with the right hand of cards, the points really stack up. Read ’em and weep.