Lite-A-Line

The Lite-A-Line, designed by Don Hooker and manufactured by Bally Manufacturing Corporation as model number 668, is not a conventional pinball machine at all: it is an electro-mechanical bingo machine for a single player. Instead of flippers and targets, bingo machines challenge the player to land balls in numbered playfield holes to complete lines on card grids displayed on the backglass.

Its headline feature is its six-card format, giving players six bingo cards on which to build winning lines, a step up in complexity from earlier single- and three-card bingos. Like other Bally bingos of the period, the game relies entirely on electro-mechanical circuitry, with relays and steppers handling the scoring logic that determines odds and awards.

The exact production year is not recorded in the database, but a 1961 Billboard article shown in the game's listing discusses how Bally was beginning to vary from its standard practice of producing only one game at a time. As a Don Hooker-designed Bally bingo, the Lite-A-Line is a representative piece of the company's dominant bingo line, a category of game that sustained Bally through the 1950s and beyond.