Club Trophy

Club Trophy is a single-player electro-mechanical horserace payout machine from Bally, documented as Model 342 and dated May 1941. Like many Bally games of the period, it belongs to the one-ball gambling genre that was a mainstay of the company's pre-war business.

Its most notable feature is convertible play: the game could be operated as either a one-ball or a five-ball machine, giving operators flexibility across different jurisdictions and location types. It was advertised as available in either a console cabinet or traditional pin table style.

Club Trophy's history carries a genuine mystery: Bally documentation assigns it a 1941 date, yet the model numbers immediately before and after 342 belong to 1939 games, an incongruity that has led researchers to theorize about a possible second 1941 model or an error in Bally's records involving the related 'Trophy' models. Billboard ads from 1941 support the later date, but the puzzle remains unresolved, making Club Trophy an intriguing subject for pinball historians.