Last update: 03-23-2007

There are more than a few memories and sightings out there to be shared!

Chuck gets his answer as to if anyone knows where to play these pins in Nevada:

Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball

From: okora...@home.com (Phil)

Date: 23 Aug 2002 21:54:48 -0700

Local: Sat,Aug 24 2002 12:54 am

Subject: Re: Bingo pinballs in Nevada?

Hi Chuck, I don't know of any bimgo machines left in Nevada. Someone recently posted here about a bingo in a bar in Pheonix. You could probably find it on a search. Also, a few places in S.F. If you have been in Reno for any length of time, you will remember Crazy Jack's Casino,a little dive on the end of the downtown strip by the railroad tracks - we called it "Crazy Jack's down by the Tracks". Just past the El Dorado. The trains would rumble by and shake the whole building. They had a couple of bingos downstairs, and more upstairs in a rathole room off the bar. They used to run a few in a more respectable casino there, but I can't remember which one. It was on Virginia Street, I think, and it was downstairs out of the way of the "mainstream" action. So you could pound away to your heart's delight! If you find any operating, let me know. I look on every trip. My wife just laughs at me.

Phil

Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball

From: "Arthur Dent" <azc...@SPAMprodigy.net>

Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2002 16:26:11 GMT

Local: Sat,Aug 24 2002 12:26 pm

Subject: Re: Bingo pinballs in Nevada?

I played some, back in the 60's, in one of the casinos in whatever the town is called across the state line at Wendover, Utah. I remember getting lots of free games and not knowing I could get paid for them, until a change girl asked me if I was ready to cash out.

Glen

CJ plays in San Francisco:

Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball

From: cjwells...@yahoo.com

Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 02:05:44 GMT

Local: Sun,Nov 19 2000 9:05 pm

Subject: Bingo Machines

Interesting find - we were traveling bar to bar today looking for new places to play pinball in San Francisco, and we came across Club 93, @ 93 9th Street. A very traditional looking, wood floor, big, dark bar, generally aging clientele. Went in looking for pinball, and found three bingo machines. A 1952 United Mfg. Co. Show Boat, and two 1955 Triple Play's. 25 cents each play, all in great condition. Show Boat had some peeling in the backglass, but the Triple Play's were great. It
was great to see these things still working, and on a location - in the perfect setting for them.

Ron Lyons down south:

Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball

From: "Ron Lyons" <Lyonsron...@hotmail.com> Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2003 05:15:06 GMT

Local: Thurs,Aug 28 2003 1:15 am

Subject: Re: Bally's Bingo Pinball Question

I'm in NC, and out of all things, the other day I was driving with my manager somewhere, and we spot a truck pull up next to ours with a NEW bingo in it. I didn't even realize they were making new ones! I have no idea where he was going, or that they would make any money in this day and age, but there it was.

Ron

Larry Harrel spies a couple bingos:

Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball

From: "Larry Harrell" <fotow...@jps.net>

Date: 1998/06/24

Subject: Re: bingo pinball

Last time I was in the Reno-Sparks area, there were two nickel bingos in the Buffalo Bar, across from John Ascagua's Nugget in Sparks......good luck!......you'll need it!

Gary asks and is answered:

Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball

From: Cabi...@aol.com (Steve Smith)

Date: 11 Nov 2001 12:34:35 -0800

Local: Sun,Nov 11 2001 3:34 pm

Subject: BIngo Pinball ... Where Can I Play?

I live in Virginia and use to play a "Golden Gate" bingo pinball in the back room of a diner in Bon Air (Richmond area). Ol' Earl use to pay out (under the table) ... He's long dead now and I would be willing to go to Maryland or Atlantic City to play legally. I'M HOPING THAT A FELLOW PINHEAD CAN LET ME KNOW WHERE.

Best Wishes,

Steve in Richmond VA

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Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball

From: "Gary Ailes" <Gary_Ai...@REMOVEscoobys.org> Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 14:01:52 GMT

Local: Mon,Nov 12 2001 9:01 am

Subject: Re: BIngo Pinball ... Where Can I Play?

I know a little "store" in PA where there are 4 bingo in plain site. The little store also has a much larger back room nearly double the size of the store which I suspect houses the video poker machines. In the same town there was a laundry mat with a well known casino in the back room including free drinks for the patrons. The laundry mat burned, arson, and the person suspected of the fire was later found in his car with a cap in his head. I've never played a bingo before, but I'd rather skip it than get involved in any illegal and potentially harmful activity.

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Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball

From: katje1...@yahoo.com (bushdoctor)

Date: 19 Nov 2001 12:44:22 -0800

Local: Mon,Nov 19 2001 3:44 pm

Subject: Re: BIngo Pinball ... Where Can I Play?

okora...@home.com (Phil) wrote in message <http://groups-beta.google.com/groups?as_umsgid=b78d8468.0111180931.5814aed3@posting.google.com>...
> Bingos are legal in more jurisdictions now simply because gambling is
> more wide open now than it was in the early '60's, but no operator
> would bother. They were running in various places in Nevada (I used to
> go to Vegas and Reno) until the mid to late 1980's. Everything dried
> up there because the machines take up too much floor space in the bars
> or casinos compared to a slot or video poker machine. They don't take
> in as much money, the tax to operate the machine is the same, and they
> are a chore to maintain. So no more legal payout bings I am aware of
> in this country.

hi there

I am a guy from Belgium who use to work for a gaming company specialized in bingos. About a year ago the company has selled about 200 bingos to a guy in the US. A colleague of mine has being there for technical support. The name of the city was Greenville so if you want to play on Belgium bingos just take a trip to Greenville.

King’s Port Crack Down:

Kingsport police officers seized these three vintage pinball machines after Friday's arrests at Chuck's Drive-In. Contributed photo.

KINGSPORT - Lunch for four police officers in plainclothes on Friday offered more than a meal after they saw a customer allegedly receive a pinball machine payout from a Chuck's Drive-In employee. Kingsport Police Department Vice Detective Sgt. Tim Crawford said he, a second KPD vice officer and two 2nd Judicial Drug Task Force officers were eating lunch at Chuck's on Industry Drive on Friday when they observed a customer playing bingo-style pinball machines. The officers observed the man, later identified as Howard Lee Nelms, 55, of Kingsport, playing the machines. At one point, Nelms nodded to the restaurant manager, later identified as Theresa Marcus, 39, of Piney Flats. Crawford said Marcus looked at the point totals on the machines, went into the office, and returned with cash for the customer. "It was obvious she was paying off the points total," Crawford said. Marcus' husband, Travis Marcus, 38, also of Piney Flats, who co-owns Chuck's, entered the restaurant, and the officers observed him have a conversation with Nelms about the payout, according to Crawford. The officers approached the three about the activity. All three were arrested - Nelms on a charge of gambling, and Travis and Theresa Marcus on a single count each of aggravated gambling promotion. When police interviewed her, Theresa Marcus said she paid the money because of an error in the machine. In another statement to police, Marcus said she paid $50 for 500 accrued points on the machine, according to Crawford. In addition to the arrests, police seized three bingo pinball machines, $480 from Nelms and $1,650 from the business. Travis Marcus and a business partner recently leased Chuck's and reopened the iconic restaurant last month after a brief closure. The men said at the time the restaurant reopened that they planned to restore it to a true drive-in and would keep some of the longtime equipment - including those three vintage pinball machines that are now evidence in three criminal cases.

From the Muse Log:

18 Aug 2003 @ 09:06 by koravya : Sandbox
August thirteenth in the late evening. The birthday of my best friend Jimmy Rose from the days of the sandbox, the old bingo card style pinball machines, the foot long hot dogs, and the soda bottle collectors for that two cents deposit, and those bicycle rides to far beyond the city limits and over those two-lane highway bridges across the Missouri and the Mississippi, and Our Gang style go-carts linked into a train of at least ten diverse constructions on various sorts of wheels, and watermelon parties, and walks across the acres of cemetery open space and tombstone fields. We went to different high schools and he was a year ahead of me; the grounding was in those sandbox and go-cart days when the space between us was half an alleyway up and half a block over, depending on which way we’re walking.

San Francisco’s Expansion bar:

2124 Market Street: As many San Franciscans know, the Expansion is the ultimate old man's dive bar, which doesn't quite explain why, on any given night, more than half the crowd tends to be in their 20s and early 30s. Fortunately the Expansion's atmosphere is overwhelming enough to withstand this profusion of aspiring drunks. The floor is beat-up linoleum tile, the tables and chairs aren't far above cafeteria grade, and the lighting is particularly unflattering. All these features, along with the toy cars and trains on the various shelves behind the bar, somehow conspire to form an authentic atmosphere. Beware the old-style flipperless pinball machines next to a more modern game. Many a drunken patron has mistakenly inserted a quarter, only to be dismayed by a lack of buttons.

Please write me if you know where others have shared their memories – I will keep this page updated with links as they roll in.

Danny Leach = leach1580@comcast.net