In 1952, Williams put out a bingo-style game that encourages you to land in the four corners of the card to win the most replays. As with most woodrails, there are multiple ways to win replays. In this case, you win replays based on three or four in line on the bingo card. It looks like a very fun game!

Bally Bingos were big money. If the machines had a feature that allowed for skilled players to earn replays too quickly, some sly operators would disable that feature. Alternatively, they might make it come up much less frequently. Working on a hacked game can be difficult - some of the technicians were very clever. The ham-fisted ones are usually very obvious and easy to repair.

The solid state bingos made by Wimi or GAA have a different type of ball return board - the design has one advantage over the Bally style of ball return, however, it also has a few disdvantages.

Bally's bingos had a ball lifter that would handle multiple tasks - chief among them, to serve a ball to the shooter lane to allow the player the chance to fire!

Bally Bingos have a special part underneath the playfield that is designed to return the balls to the trough. This part, despite its simplicity, is also an elegant solution to getting all the balls back into the trough without jamming.

Bingos have a special mechanism underneath the playfield which will trap or release the balls. This mechanism is pretty neat and actually controls quite a bit of the game logic depending on state (open or closed). Some issues that can occur with the shutter are discussed.

Had a productive evening. Finished cleaning and swapping parts that I had onto Night Club - enough to get the game to turn on. I have two of the motors moving appropriately, and various relays are doing the correct thing. Very exciting! I'm waiting on a few parts to get it fully working, but at the moment, it feels good to make progress.

Bally bingos have a button under the shooter rod that is only usable at certain times during gameplay. What is the function of this button? Why was it included? Is there any difference between the various games Bally produced with regard to this button?

Bingo playfields are not all created equal. I have a bingo playfield swap about 90% complete, and note some differences between solid state bingo playfields and their Bally counterparts.

Pinside user btw75 just picked up his first Bally bingo! A Circus Queen magic screen game. He also provided me with a great tech tip (or TekTip) that I just had to share. Thanks btw75!