Skill Race

The 1962 Skill Race pinball machine from Games Incorporated of Chicago is a distinctive electro-mechanical (EM) machine with a dog-racing theme. It is also a notable outlier for its manufacturer, which otherwise specialized in gambling-oriented amusement devices and is not known to have produced another pinball-format machine.

Gameplay in Skill Race centers on chance and payout: players insert coins until the backglass shows three dogs in a line, after which they get three balls to shoot into holes marked Win, Place, and Show, each with its own payout indicated on the backglass. Two pop bumpers and two trap holes shape the ball's path on the flipperless playfield.

Little is documented about the machine's specific artwork beyond its dog-racing backglass imagery. Games Incorporated unveiled the machine in June 1962, and no further pinball machines from the company are known afterward, possibly tied to shifting regulations around gambling devices in that period. As such, Skill Race offers a curious glimpse into a manufacturer's brief foray into pinball-format gambling equipment.