Multiple

The Bally Manufacturing Corporation's 1936 'Multiple' is a one-ball payout pinball machine designed by Harry Williams, who confirmed his role as designer in a 1979 interview with pinball historian Russ Jensen. It was manufactured during the early years of the electromechanical (EM) pinball era, a period when the industry's payout and gambling-adjacent machines were evolving rapidly.

The gameplay is straightforward: for 5 cents, players get a single ball on a compact cabinet measuring 50 inches long by 26 inches wide, played with a 1-inch non-magnetic metal ball. Despite offering only one ball per play, up to four players could participate in a single game, with lights on the playfield's back wall tracking how many coins had been inserted and allowing payouts to be tracked for each participating player.

Little information survives about Multiple's theme or artwork, which isn't unusual for machines from this early period of the industry. As a payout machine designed by one of pinball's most important early figures, Multiple offers a window into the coin-operated gaming landscape more than a decade before the flipper's 1947 debut would reshape the industry.