Queen Machines

This is a copy of an article written some years ago by Russ Jensen, whom was kind enough to contact me and pass it along so I could proudly share it here with you - thxs Russ.........

Although these machines are not Bingos, their whole purpose may have been to enable the transport of parts across state lines after Bingo became illegal, to still service those machines........

THE 'QUEENS' GAMES

Early in 1960, Bally, who had primarily been making the gambling type "bingo pinballs" during most of the fifties, came out with a series of unique pingames which employed 'number sequences' as a major game objective. Like the "bingos", these machines had no flippers, but in all other respects resembled an amusement pinball. With one exception, BEAUTY CONTEST, the names of all these games contained the word "queens", and for this reason I refer to them as the "Queens Games". The other games in this series were: BEACH QUEENS, BEAUTY QUEENS, TROPIC QUEENS, and ISLAND QUEENS.

All of these games had number sequences (11 numbers), each number being represented by a picture of a beautiful girl on the backglass. These numbers were lit by hitting bumpers, etc, on the playfield. Lighting various amounts of these 'girls' (it was how many numbers, not which ones that counted) would result in different amounts of replays being awarded to the skillful player. Some of these games allowed the player only 1 ball and others two or five.

As an interesting sidelight to the "Queens Games", they used many internal parts that also had been used on Bally "bingo" machines. I have heard it rumored that one of the reasons Bally came out with these games was to enable them to legally ship "bingo" parts, since the Korpran Decision in 1957 had declared "bingo pinballs" to be gambling devices subject to the Johnson Act. Whether or not this is true I can not say, but at any rate, the Bally "Queens Games" were an interesting addition to the parade of "sequence pingames" over the years.

In 1966, several years after Bally resumed production of flipper pinballs, they came out with a flipperless machine in the "Queens Game" tradition. This game was called FUN CRUISE and Bally's brochure for it stated "by popular demand! Old favorite, 'lights out' scoring." This game had 15 numbered flags on the backglass which could be made by hitting bumpers, targets, or a "mystery spotting" kickout hole. In addition to the numbers it also had the standard point scoring typical of the flipper games of the period.

The game gave the player only 3 balls. The ad further boasted of the game having no flippers by stating "no flippers....restoring the happy arts of nudging, tapping, and body English....speedy action of 3 sling-shot activated balls which deliver twice the excitement, suspense and satisfaction of 5 'flipper flapped' balls." And, a few months later, Bally introduced a similar machine called DELUXE FUN CRUISE with many of the same features, plus a "mystery spotting" thumper bumper. So even in the mid-sixties pinball players could still play a real old-fashioned "number sequence" flipperless pingames.

................................Additional Queen Machine Article.............................

Please see my "Link III" page and my "Books and Articles" page to link up with another on-line story on these Bally Queen pinball games, this site has a nice Beauty Queen flyer as it's header.

Does She Or Doesn't She - By Federico Croci - Bolonga, Italy

Mr. Russ Jensen shared the article with me, it's from the PinGame Journal #13 July 1992

Apparently Russ and Frederico had been dicussing pin games and Federico just happened to have one of these rare Beauty Contest machines.

He decided to take a closer look at his pin and here are some excerpts from the subsequent article he wrote:

"The cabinet is different from those normally used in pinballs; almost all of the mechanisms are in the back cabinet, accessible by a swinging door, just like the one used in bingos. Inside, although much more empty, it looks like a bingo; all the parts used are the same as you find inside those gambling machines!"

"Even the coin door is of the bingotype. There is only one red button on which is used to play the credits (apart from the one used for slug rejection). The front wooden molding (which is removed to pull out the playing field glass) is of the conventional type and has no button. But, wait a minute! There's another door which is smaller then the coin door on the left side! And what is otherwise empty, except for the usual tilt assemblies to the right of the main switch? A quick look at the diagram uncovers this mystery."

"The operator can choose a percentage of the coins which, through a solenoid-operated diverter placed in the coin shute, (called "Auto-Mission coin-divider" in the flyer), fall inside an extra cash box inside the left of the door. This percentage may vary from one coin for every two inserted, up to one for every six inserted."

"A bingo-type, three digit replay counter is also present."

"Replays can only be played. It's not possible like on bingos, to buy extra balls, change the odds, etc."

"There are two strange slingshots which use two coils instead of one."

"These slingshot assemblies are more powerful than normal ones we usually find in flipper-type pinball"

Note from Dan Leach: This is another indication that these were in essence bingo pins. I have a taped interview with Don Hooker who mentions that if he would have patent this idea, he would have easily become a millionare :)

The article goes on to tell much more history and is very interesting in general. Russ Jensen mailed me a copy of this, and in turn I will mail you one is asked.

Russ also gave me a copy of the taped interview, and again I cannot thank him enough for his kindness.

Some day I hope to have time to get it duped into a web format and post it on this site :)

Very Rare European Flyer

This page was last updated 05/12/2003