One nitpick: it would be a fair assumption that these gaming machines back in the early-mid 20th century wouldn't be "electronic" but rather, mechanical.
An interesting and well written story, thanks to the author. I would add however that racketeering in Portland using pin ball machines and the like did not end with the fall of Jim Elkins. It continued on for a number of years, as did the bribes paid to ranking members of the Portland Police Bureau and the District Attorney's Office to look the other way and to ensure that their subordinates did the same. For a street level PPB officer to do otherwise may have resulted in some very nasty things happening to them. Phil Stanford can likely confirm this. I know about it because of family members that were involved, back in the day...
Worth mentioning that Portland has more games per capita than, well, anywhere, at least according to http://www.pinballmap.com/portland . I've recently come across a few of the CFF tuesday night characters. You oughtta do a story on them. They have a lingo all their own, and names like "Tank" "Bumpers," and "The Whapper." Let's not forget that the epic pinball zine MULTIBALL! was PDX-based...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsGGk3G8IIo
http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Noir-Portl…