Bing O Reno

The Bing O Reno, credited to designer Henry Grauf and later associated with Jack Firestone, was manufactured by Scientific Machine Corporation in November 1954. It's an electromechanical rolldown/bingo-style machine that reportedly began as a pilot game Grauf ran in his New Jersey arcade for five years before Scientific put it into mass production.

Gameplay centers on its bingo-card mechanic: players could buy one, two, or three bingo cards for 10 cents each, then roll six rubber balls down the playfield toward 25 trap holes, each of which lights a corresponding number on the backglass to complete card patterns. The solid birch cabinet with a Formica top measures roughly 7 feet long and 2 feet wide, giving the game a substantial presence.

Little else is documented about the Bing O Reno, and surviving information largely comes from period trade publications like Billboard, which detailed the design credit dispute between Grauf and Firestone. Its bingo-pinball gameplay places it within the broader wave of rolldown/bingo machines popular through the 1950s, making it an interesting artifact for collectors of that genre.