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Or should I say "show-and-tell" time. Here's a Show Time photo I bet you haven't seen and let me tell ya a little about the Bally Bingos ya probably didn't know: The main architect behind the design of these pins was a gifted young electrical engineer named Don hooker. |
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Some of Russ Jensen's notes where he interviewed Bally
Designer Don Hooker
DON HOOKER
After the opening remarks by show producer
Rob Burk, the first seminar speaker was introduced. He was Don Hooker, former
designer of "bingo type" pinballs for Bally, who is now 82 years of age. Mr.
Hooker began by stating that he first joined the games industry in 1936 when he
went to work for Pacific Amusement Manufacturing Co. (better known as PAMCO)
where he worked until 1938. He recalled working on a game at PAMCO called
LITE-A-LINE which was somewhat similar to the bingo pinballs he designed twenty
years later at Bally.
Sometime later (he did not mention the exact year,
but it may have been 1938 when he left PAMCO) he went to work for Bally. He
mentioned working on the "one-ball" horserace pin CITATION, which came out in
1949. He remembered that it had "guaranteed advancing odds" (Author's note: It
was the first "one-ball" with that feature) like the bingos which came out
later.
Mr. Hooker then said that a man named Bernie Bernside came up
with the idea of the "Reflex Unit" which was used in the later "one-balls" and
all of the "bingos". The purpose of this unit was to 'tighten up' Or 'loosen up'
the payout chances for the player based on how well the game had been paying out
in the past. This was a marvelous invention and many people connected with
bingos don't have any idea how it works, certainly not the players.
He
talked about bingos having very complex electro- mechanical systems. He said
they developed automatic test equipment to test the games in the factory. He
also said Bally had quite a few years of big production of bingos (the mid
1950s) until "the government declared bingos were gambling devices." (Author's
note: he was apparently referring to the "Korpran Decision" of the Supreme Court
in 1957 declaring bingo pinballs to be subject to the Johnson Act.) The players,
he said, still liked the bingos but "the Government said 'no' ".
Finally
he talked about testing the games in New Orleans. He also said he left Bally in
the early 1970s and he and a partner designed a dice game which Bally bought
from them. He then went back to Bally until around 1980 when he finally retired.
He said he was the primary designer of most of the Bally bingos.
Page last updated 10/09/2001
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