45-Derby

The 45-Derby, produced by the Roy McGinnis Company of Baltimore, Maryland in June 1945, is a wartime conversion of Bally's 1941 '41-Derby,' given new paint and a new playfield rather than being an entirely original design — a common practice during World War II when material shortages limited new game production.

As an electro-mechanical, single-player horse-racing game, 45-Derby predates flippers (introduced in 1947) and reflects the gameplay conventions of its earlier 1941 source machine. Its backglass measures 23 by 23 inches. Little independent documentation survives about specific scoring rules or features beyond what carried over from the original 41-Derby design.

Horse racing was a well-established pinball theme by the mid-1940s, and 45-Derby's existence as a wartime repaint illustrates how manufacturers kept games in circulation — and factories running — during a period when new machine production was constrained by wartime restrictions.