Bally Derby

The Bally Derby, manufactured by Bally Manufacturing Corporation in February 1960, is a horse-racing themed amusement machine — but despite its inclusion in pinball reference databases, it is not actually a pinball machine. It is a gun game featuring a pop-up array of 20 holes and mechanical animation of five racing horses, included here for clarification purposes rather than as a genuine pinball title.

Gameplay centers on horse racing: each of up to five players selects a horse to win. The number of shots given varies with the player count — a solo game gives 12 shots, a two-player game gives 9 shots per player, and three-, four-, and five-player games give 6 shots per player each. The mechanical animation of the horses racing gave players a visual, competitive payoff for their shooting accuracy.

Like other equipment of its era, the Bally Derby used electro-mechanical relays and switches to control play. Specific information about its designer and artwork is not available. While not a true pinball machine, the Bally Derby remains an interesting piece of early-1960s coin-op history for collectors interested in Bally's broader amusement game output.