What are those strange pinball type looking machines with all of the holes and not flippers? Those are called “Bingo” machines.
Very similar looking to pinball machines – Bingo machines have a playfield, plunger and head with backglass.
But there are no flippers and the playfield typically consists of row after row of numbered holes. On the backglass are typically a series of “bingo cards” and the backglass might be a lot taller than a typical pinball machine.
Bingo pinball machines were made as a reaction to the passing of the Johnson Act in 1950. This classified the machines manufactured by Bally, Universal, and others as gambling devices. …. Don Hooker invented the bingo pinball as we know it today. The playfield had a combination of spring steel, lamps hidden behind shields on the playfield, carefully positioned posts with two types of rubber, and 25 trap holes. These holes corresponded to a bingo card on the backglass arranged in a seemingly random 5×5 grid.
The first game from Bally had six cards – each card could be bought, in order, for one nickel. The game proved extremely popular, and got around the primary issue with the one balls: on the new bingo pinball, a player could win with only 3 of 5 balls played properly. You only had to line up three numbers on the card to win a small amount of replays. 4 in a row earned about 4 times the amount for 3. And 5 in a row earned 100 replays.
https://www.thisweekinpinball.com/beginners-guide-bingo-pinball-nick-baldridge/
So Bingo Machines are basically a gambling-type device and require a bartender or attendant to pay out the wins.
They are beautiful machines with classic artwork from the 50s and 60s and often sport beautifully patina-ed wooden rails.
They make Bingos up to the mid-70s. I’ve even seen one for sale NIB from the seventies.
Unfortunately in the collector market when compared to pinball machines they don’t hold much value. Beautiful to look at but dull to play in the home environment where your gambling doesn’t pay off and compared to the interaction with a pinball machine, the Bingos don’t have much play fun.
Another disadvantage of bingos is the complexity of the electronic and the weight. Bingos tend to be bigger, heavier, and more complex than their pinball machine cousins.
You often see bingo machines selling for between free and $500. Certainly among the bingo collectors, certain rare titles will be worth more than others but pinball machine collectors usually shy away from them because they take up valuable space that could a pinball machine.
