Bally Entertainment Corporation

Bally is one of the most well-known names in arcade history as manufacturers of coin-operated videogames and pinball machines.

It all began in 1932 under the name of Bally Manufacturing Corporation, founded by Raymond Moloney in Chicago, Illinois, as a subsidiary of Lion Manufacturing. The primary focus was the making of coin-op pinball games, but the company dabbled in other ventures including the manufacture of gambling equipment and vending machines. After the death of its founder in 1958, private investors purchased the company in 1963. It was during this time that the Bally owners became interested in casino gaming, and in 1964 their first electromechanical slot machine, Money Honey, was released.

In 1968 Bally Manufacturing Corp. was incorporated and acquired Midway Manufacturing Co. in 1969, one of their major competitors in the pinball machine market. As Midway Mfg. Co., they were responsible for Bally's electro-mechanic and eventually videogame arcade business as well as the development of theBally Astrocade console. In 1982, Bally merged their pinball business into Midway; in 1988 the arcade and pinball assets were sold to Williams Electronic Games.

In the 1990s, the company left the gaming business (the last chain of arcade games, was sold to Namco and became Namco Cybertainment in 1993). Their main business became operating casinos and producing the fitness equipment line Life Fitness. They were bought by "Hilton Hotels Corporation in 1995 and the corporation was transferred to New York state. Bally Entertainment ceased to exist when Hilton merged all their casino businesses into Park Place Entertainment in 1998.