Acapulco

Acapulco, designed by Don Hooker and released by Bally Manufacturing Corporation in 1961, is a bingo machine - a distinctive branch of the pinball family in which players shoot balls into a 5x5 grid of trap holes, aiming to line up numbers on a bingo card in the backglass. At five balls for five cents, it followed the classic bingo formula that made these games a staple of taverns and arcades.

The playfield features 25 trap holes and a pair of rollover buttons, but the strategic heart of the game is Bally's 'Magic Squares' feature: when purchased through additional coins, it lets the player press buttons to rearrange the numbers on the backglass card - before the fourth ball, before the fifth ball, or even after the fifth ball - turning each game into an exercise in odds management.

The artwork evokes an idyllic beach resort, complete with swimmers, boats, and sun-drenched tropical imagery befitting its namesake. As a well-preserved example of Bally's long-running bingo line, Acapulco offers a window into a side of pinball history that many collectors never encounter.