When Irish descendant Ray Moloney first started producing his pinball game at Lion manufacturing in 1931 he could hardly have predicted the success his innovation would achieve over the following decades.

This week the company founded by Moloney in Chicago celebrated its 75th anniversary in style.

"The history of this company is fantastic" said Richard Haddrill, Bally's CEO since 2004. "There's a lot of great history here in Chicago and a lot of great customers, and we're going to launch some new products here as well."

The company got its start when Moloney brought his Ballyhoo pinball game to Lion Manufacturing in 1931. Bally Manufacturing, today known as Bally Technologies, was founded as Lion's pinball arm in January 1932.

Bally's first slot machine, the counter-top Bally Baby, came along in 1938, and there followed nearly three-quarters of a century of
Innovation and slot industry milestones.

At Navy Pier, Chicago, Bally displayed some of those milestone products alongside the new high-tech games that are Bally's present and future. There was an original Ballyhoo pinball machine, right alongside the 1963 Money Honey slot that was the first electromechanical slot machine. Money Honey also was the first with a coin hopper, enabling bigger payouts since coins were circulated from a large pool rather than limited to the amounts that could fit in coin tubes.

"We've had a lot of ups and downs in 75 years, so we're a very persistent company," Haddrill said. "In the year 2000, we made a focused effort to acquire the best technology to supply the gaming industry. Then we spent the last two years consolidating all those technologies onto a common technology platform and improving our quality. We now have the hottest products in the industry. And when games and systems come together, Bally is going to be the company for the future in gaming."

In an ultra competitive environment Bally continues to go from strength to strength both in the States and further afield.

Upgrades in slot product and its position as the market leader in gaming systems led Bally to a 31 percent increase in revenues in the six months ended Dec. 31 to $305.6 million.
 
"Our new products are being very well received, we are growing our international revenues, which were only 5 percent of our revenues two years ago and are 15 percent of our revenues today," Haddrill said. "And we're gaining market share in both the major segments of our business, games and systems. And stock price has gone up.

"We're getting orders now in North America for our gaming devices between 20 and 30 percent of market share. In states like New York, we have a 50 percent market share, in the state of Washington, we have a 75 percent market share. Historically, Bally has been around a 7 to 14 percent market share. So we're getting some really good gains in market share just based on the quality of our product."

As Bally looks back over 75 years of success they’ll be keeping one eye on the future and their 100th year anniversary in 2032!