String Pins Are Destroying Bowling. The PBA Cashed In.

Description:
In November 2023 the USBC ruled string pins score no different from free-fall machines. The same nineteen-page report recorded fewer strikes, a narrower pocket, and worse pin action.

The United States Bowling Congress spent three years studying string pinsetters. Its own lab robot — EARL, the Enhanced Automated Robotic Launcher — found a measurable scoring gap: a 6.9% drop in strikes in the 2020 phase, then 7.1% fewer strikes and up to 10 pins lower per game in the April 2023 report. That report made string pin bowling a separate category, with averages that were NOT interchangeable with free-fall.

Then the methodology changed. Instead of the robot, the USBC ran 350 human bowlers through four games each — a test it designed to detect a gap of four pins or larger. It found "no statistically significant difference," and executive director Chad Murphy changed the playing rules the same day the report was published, "in collaboration with the industry's manufacturers."

The Professional Bowlers Association followed. It tested and approved exactly one machine — the Kubica AMF Edge string pinsetter. Within a year, Kubica AMF was the PBA's presenting sponsor, with EJ Tackett and Jason Belmonte bowling its machines at the 2025 PBA All-Star Weekend. Brunswick Corporation's Boost ST, also USBC-certified, still hadn't been tested by the PBA.

This is the string pin bowling controversy nobody walks through end to end: not whether the machines feel "off," but what the governing body's own data said before it stopped using the robot.

Sources:
USBC String Pinsetter Scoring Research Report (Nov 2023, 19 pages): https://bowl.com/getmedia/591753b3-4350-4ccd-a596-dc65a3e95897/110923_usbc-string-pinsetter-scoring-report.pdf

USBC "no significant difference" release (Nov 9, 2023): https://bowl.com/news/usbc-completes-certified-string-pinsetter-scoring-research;-determines-no-significant-difference-fro

USBC preliminary "statistically different" finding (2020): https://bowl.com/news/preliminary-usbc-research-shows-string-pinsetter-pinfall-statistically-different

USBC April 2023 independent-category certification: https://bowl.com/news/usbc-certifies-string-pin-bowling-as-independent-competition-effective-august-1,-2023

Los Angeles Times "Column One" (Nov 21, 2023): https://sports.yahoo.com/bowling-simple-game-youth-being-172645459.html

Bowling's hidden stories — the ones the sport doesn't want you to know. If you want the rest of the records the governing bodies keep off their own walls, subscribe to Pin Action. Every video we make is part of it.

CHAPTERS:
0:00 The Report That Says Both Things
0:31 Averages Are Bowling's Foundation
2:24 Why Centers Switched: $1M and 32 Cars
4:11 The Lab Data Found a Scoring Gap
6:48 USBC Swaps the Robot for 350 Bowlers
9:25 "Collaboration With the Manufacturers"
10:56 The PBA Approves Kubica AMF Edge
12:31 The Sponsor and the Same Old Playbook


#PBA #StringPins #USBC