Hit Parade

The Hit Parade, manufactured by D. Gottlieb & Company in August 1936, is a pre-war baseball-themed pin game with a twist: it is a payout machine, an automatic gambling-style game from the era before such machines were widely outlawed. Interestingly, the backglass does not show the game's name at all, instead displaying the words "ODDS for HITS."

The playfield is dominated by 28 trap holes, with the odds mechanism determining the payoff for the player's hits. Gottlieb offered the game with a range of options typical of the period, including a mystery single or multiple coin slot, a ticket-dispensing version for an extra $10.00, a check separator at no extra charge, and battery or D.C. Adaptopak power. It was equipped with the then-new A.B.T. No. 400 coin slot.

Hit Parade was actually one of a family of near-identical games Gottlieb produced in 1936 with different themes: College Football carried a football theme, Derby Day a horserace theme, and High Card a playing card theme. As a payout-era Gottlieb with a baseball motif, Hit Parade offers collectors and historians a glimpse into the gambling side of the 1930s coin machine business, before pinball and payout machines went their separate legal ways.