Neenah, WI
Even on my favorite table, he can beat my best.
"Table" doesn't bug me, but "deck" does.
I also understand that some other languages refer to them as "flippers"!
(Topic ID: 171997)
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Quoted from Whysnow:DanQ > LMK when you want to come play some decks at my place
I'm too old to be skateboarding! 
chocolate_pinball_series_decks (resized).jpg
(Seriously, thanks for the invite, I shall take you up on it someday! You are welcome here too!)
Quoted from o-din:This is the first time I've heard it referred to as a pinaball machine.
Are you sure?
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/search?s=1&what=posts&q=pinaball&topic-machine=&pinsider=&age_days=&subforum=0&include_basement=1&sort_by=date&sort_order=ASC#results
(In 38 posts before this thread.)
You've even used it yourself! 
Quoted from o-din:I want my DMDs like pizza. Fully loaded with all the goodies. But for sex, strip it down and make me feel it! Oh, is this a pinaball forum...... oops....
5 years later
It occurred to me in another thread that "table" is actually a better term than "machine" for what our beloved pinball games are and do.
For one thing, they resemble a table to a far greater extent than they resemble any machine. This is a self-evident fact. What machine has four legs and a great big empty space beneath it? (AT-ATs aren't real, btw.)
But mainly, a machine is a device that performs work! Look it up! Which is the exact opposite of what a pinball game does! You don't do work with a pin, you play it!
Quoted from TheLaw:Pinball machine must calculate points to advance balls; machine
Not "work." In the physics sense.
Quoted from flynnibus:Ball goes up an incline - that's 'work'
Ball goes up from tough to playfield - that's 'work'
Everytime a coil fires.. that's work...
Work in physics is easy to define in a pinball machine.
And what is the end result of all that "work"? A game. Play.
"Hey Bob, bring me that pinball machine, I need this ball to roll up an incline temporarily."
Machines are created to accomplish something. The only work a pinball manufactures is getting the player all worked up!
And I'm still waiting for an example of a machine with four legs and a big empty space under it.
A table saw, maybe? But, wait, we have no problem invoking the nomenclature "table" for that!
Finally, a few minutes of Googling reveals the term "pinball table" was in use long before that silly Who song, in Billboard magazine on Feb 26, 1949 for instance. https://books.google.com/books?id=OPYDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA109&dq=%22pinball+table
So, to answer the original question, why do some people call it a table? Because that is a word some people use to describe it! That is how language works. If it bothers anyone, that's on them for being narrow minded. Maybe they'd be happier speaking a simpler, less flexible language.
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