Bally

Few names carry more weight in the history of pinball than Bally. Founded in 1931 by Raymond T. Moloney — who named the company after his breakthrough success, the Ballyhoo — Bally Manufacturing Corporation grew from a Chicago novelty shop operation into one of the most dominant forces in the amusement industry. For more than five decades, Bally machines set the standard for quality, innovation, and style.

Bally was a defining voice in the Electromechanical era, producing iconic tables through the 1950s and 1960s and helping to normalize pinball as a fixture of arcades and taverns across America. The company’s greatest technological leap came in 1977 with Freedom, widely credited as the first commercially successful Solid State pinball machine. That transition to microprocessors opened new frontiers in gameplay complexity, and Bally raced to exploit them — Multiball, talking machines, and increasingly elaborate rule sets all followed in quick succession.

In 1988, Bally merged its pinball and amusement operations with those of Williams, forming WMS Industries. The two brands continued producing machines under their separate names — Bally tending toward licensed pop-culture themes, Williams toward complex gameplay — until WMS shuttered its pinball division in 1999. The Bally name was later licensed to Stern for use on a number of titles, a tribute to the brand’s enduring resonance.