World Cup

World Cup, manufactured by Bally Manufacturing Corporation, is technically not a pinball machine - despite the name and its appearance on some pinball lists, it is a head-to-head, two-player electromechanical soccer game (Model 812), included in pinball collections and price guides for context and clarification rather than because it plays like traditional pinball.

The game pits a "red team" against a "blue team" for 25 cents a play, operates on a timer, uses a buzzer and bell for sound, and plays with a small plastic ball only 3/4 of an inch in diameter. Confirmed production reached 908 units. Bally's Numerical List of Machines gives Model 812 a project date associated with 1967-68, though that date reflects when the model was scheduled rather than necessarily the exact production sequence; collector research suggests some units may have used leftover cabinets from Bally's 1967 'Boot-A-Ball', based on shared cabinet structure and non-standard serial numbers beginning with "B" instead of the expected "W" or "WC".

Because World Cup isn't a pinball machine in the traditional sense - there is no playfield with flippers, bumpers, or a steel ball rolling under gravity - it stands as a curiosity in Bally's catalog: an early attempt at head-to-head sports-themed competitive play using a lightweight plastic ball and a timer-based format, rather than pinball's classic ball-and-flipper design.