Inside Your Bingo
Ball Trough

ball trough and lift chute

The left most of these switches, trough switch eight, senses the fact, at the start of a new game, that all eight balls are in place in the trough. The raising of the first ball to the playfield is inhibited by this switch until all eight balls reach the trough. For this reason, if the first ball in a game is not raised, one should check to be sure that one of the balls is not stuck somewhere on the playfield or on the sloping board beneath it. The three switches near the right end of the trough, trough switches one, two, and three are used, in conjunction with the extra ball unit described earlier, to control the raising, and re-raising if necessary, of the three extra balls when one or more of these is awarded to the player during extra ball play.

This concludes the description of the typical basic components found in that fascinating device known as the bingo pinball. I am sure the reader can see from the above discussion that this type of game involves a highly complex and coordinated electro-mechanical system. As was stated earlier, the components described are typical of Bally bingos of the mid to late 'fifties, but the components of other bingos are quite similar in nature. As was also pointed out, this discussion did not involve actual circuit details.