Tropicana

The United Manufacturing Company's Tropicana bingo pinball machine, first shipped January 1955, is an example of the electro-mechanical (EM) bingo-machine genre popular in the mid-1950s, built around tropical recreation imagery of water and women rather than a conventional flipper layout.

Gameplay-wise, the Tropicana boasts an impressive array of features for its time, including 25 trap holes, one main card plus four special cards, a Lite-A-Name carry-over feature, and a Super Selection Return-All-Balls mechanism. Players can also rotate a knob on the coin door to select from various lit "selection feature" options displayed in the backglass, letting them choose a lit number before shooting the fourth or fifth ball if those features are purchased.

The Tropicana's design and art evoke a sense of tropical recreation, with imagery of water and women typical of United's bingo machines of the era. Specific designer credits for this title have not survived, but it remains an interesting example of the elaborate feature-select mechanics that characterized mid-1950s bingo pinball machines.