Golden Wheel

The Golden Wheel, manufactured by Bally in May 1937 as model number 155, is an electro-mechanical payout machine from the era when Bally was one of the leading makers of cash-awarding pin games. Payout machines like this one dispensed coins directly to players for successful shots, occupying the contested ground between amusement pinball and outright gambling equipment that defined much of the 1930s coin-machine trade.

Like all games of its day, the Golden Wheel had no flippers - those would not be invented until 1947 - so play consisted of shooting balls onto the playfield and hoping skill and luck would land them in winning positions. Beyond its manufacturer, date, and model number, little detailed documentation of its playfield or award structure survives.

As a single-player Bally payout game from 1937, the Golden Wheel is a representative artifact of a business model that would soon come under heavy legal pressure, as cities across America moved to ban payout pin games in the late 1930s and early 1940s.