Bally Online Slot Machines
If you like slot machines, then you probably know the Bally name. This iconic brand has had a presence in the American casino and gaming industry since the 1930s.
It provided the slot machine designs that changed the way people play, and the company had a hand in the historic spread of casinos across the United States.
While Bally has had its ups and downs through several mergers and acquisitions, the brand survives to continue its mission of providing entertaining and innovative machines.
Bally Slots Online With the advent of modern slots and technology, Bally realized that to continue to thrive in the industry they’d have to make the move to online slots. The continue to operate in the land-based casino industry but now have an online gaming arm, and continue the acquisition of other companies like Casino Marketplace. Cash Wizard is a new online slots machine released by Bally Technology. The game offers a cute mystery theme and tons of special features and which makes it fun and entertaining. First of all there is the Mystery Wheel, the. Finding A Good Bally Slots Casino Online The beauty of online casinos in 2021 means you can now enjoy Bally slots for free or real money. Most SG Gaming-powered casino sites have a few dozen Bally slot machines to play. The gameplay is slick, you can pick a wide range of. Bally Quick Hit Slot is the most popular game from Bally among all slots of this brand. This slot is marked by players as the most interesting and popular. About 80% of all game lovers from this provider constantly play this particular slot machine. Bally Technologies is a merger of two companies, Bally and Advanced Patent Technology. The organization has graduated to developing free online slots in recent years after making the famous Triple Bell slot machine console in 1946.
Where to play slots like Bally
Free to play Bally slots online
Most Popular Bally Slots
It shouldn’t be surprising that Bally has a large catalog of slots available, given their time in the industry. Many of their classic Atlantic City slot machines have been made into online games. These five favorites are a great place to start.
- Quick Hit Super Wheel Wild Red – This mouthful of a machine features 5 reels and 30 paylines along with a lot of features and bonuses. While the design is inspired by traditional slot machines, the gameplay is completely modern. Lucky players will get a chance to spin the Super Wheel to unlock instant winnings, multipliers, wilds or loaded free spins. There’s also a range of Quick Hit jackpots on the line for every spin.
- Triple Cash Wheel – Another machine that mixes a classic design with a lot of modern bells and whistles. This slot machine plays three separate games simultaneously for a total of 15 reels and 60 paylines. On top of the exciting base game, Triple Cash Wheel includes a big bonus game that lets players earn instant credits or free spins with big multipliers.
- Lucky Tree – A fun Asian-themed 5-reel slot machine game with 30 paylines and several bonus rounds. The titular Lucky Tree adds a little excitement to each spin, with the potential for a breeze to send extra wild spaces tumbling down onto the reels. Lucky Tree also features a free spin bonus round and a special pick bonus round, which lets players turn over mystery tiles to try and create matching sets of animals for big bonuses.
- Acorn Pixie – A beautiful slot machine that brings an enchanted forest and its pixie inhabitants to life. The 5-reel machine with 30 paylines includes a touch of magic, which can flip losing spins around with a lucky 2×2 cluster wild that can appear to fill gaps. The bonus round is based around an extended version of the game, with 6 rows to fill and permanent wild spaces that branch out from the bottom to help fill out the reels with winning paylines. Players can choose to skip the basic spins and simply pay to play a number of free spins in the bonus round.
- Fu Dao Le – A very popular Asian-themed slot machine that features numerous ways to win. This 5-reel game doesn’t use traditional paylines, instead it allows any one of 243 potential left-to-right combinations to trigger a win. The game also includes 4 Red Envelope progressive jackpots that can be won with a lucky spin or through the Match-3 bonus game. There are also free spin bonus rounds, multipliers, stacked wilds and mystery spaces.
Mobile Gaming – Bally Slot Apps
Players interested in Bally games should be happy to hear that their interest in technological innovations extends to making many of their games available for play on mobile devices. This includes all of the top 5 picks listed above. While Bally does not have a dedicated slot game app, players should be able to find their slots listed on several different apps for iOS and Android phones. Free apps usually provide some free coins each day with an option to buy more for anyone who wants to play a longer session. Locations that allow players to bet real money on online slots should be able to find Bally machines on casino apps.
In general, Bally online slot games should play well even on mobile devices. Their clean designs scale well with smaller screens and should be easy to read, although games that use expanded reels may get a little cramped during the bonus round. Certain features such as the U-Spin wheel may not be fully supported on mobile apps. Players may have to settle for just pushing a “spin” button instead of actually spinning the wheel. It should be a small price to pay for the convenience of playing these great games on-the-go or at home.
Bally’s Innovations & Features
Throughout the company’s history, Bally has been a leader in general slot machine innovation. Aside from their historic contributions, they continue to provide improvements such as larger screens in cabinets and faster software. These important technological developments have been accompanied by some fun gameplay innovations too.
Following the merger with Alliance Gaming, Bally’s slot design shifted to focus on providing an engaging and fun experience along with the thrill of gambling. Its primary competitor, IGT, felt that gamblers didn’t want more complicated systems.
This directly led to innovations such as their Thrillions system, a twist on classic linked progressive jackpots. Beginning with their classic Betty Boop, Popeye and Blondie themed machines, the rollout in 1999 put the focus on smaller jackpots that were triggered more frequently.
Running off of the same philosophy, players will probably notice the common Quick Hit feature on Bally slot games. This non-progressive jackpot system provides a full range of payouts with frequent minor pots and rarer, proper jackpots for the big strikes.
Buy Bally Slot Machines
Bally hasn’t forgotten the joys of large community-linked payouts though. Players looking for larger more traditional progressive jackpots in modern machines can stick to the Red Envelope series, which includes fun games such as Fu Dao Le, Heavenly Riches and Super Rise of Ra.
Bally Online Slot Machines Free
The U-Spin bonus game is probably Bally’s most visible success. Starting with the Cash Spin slot machine, this eye-catching innovation provided a thrilling change to the typical bonus round format.
Lucky winners get to actually spin the digital wheel at the top of the machine for a chance to win large credit payouts, free games or even progressive jackpots. The real thrill comes from the built-in gesture control, which reacts to the speed and direction of the player’s swipe. The U-Spin wheel adds the fun of a game show to basic slots gameplay.
In general, players will see that Bally’s attention is focused on providing interesting and exciting bonuses. Bally slots can include large, expanding reels that provide more ways to win, or even simple money bag bonuses that let players pick one of three mystery bags with the chance of a big payout.
The introduction of the Buy A Bonus feature in the recently released Acorn Pixie machine clearly shows where future development is headed. The option for players to just pay for one last shot at the bonus round before they leave shows Bally’s commitment to a fun experience.
The Winding Tale of Bally
The actual Bally company began not as a slot machine company, but as a pinball developer. Raymond Moloney founded the Bally Manufacturing Corporation in 1932 in Chicago. The name came from its first product, the Ballyhoo.
The Ballyhoo pinball game was an early coin-operated piece that filled bars across America. In 1936, Bally used its experience and connections to expand into the growing gambling industry by creating the Bally Baby, a small mechanical slot machine.
Bally would mostly cease production of gaming machines during World War II to provide manufacturing power for the war effort. This didn’t slow down their product development though, with their tall “Hi-Boy” model releasing after the end of the war in 1945. This iconic design, while very basic by modern standards, created a look that would inspire the one-armed bandit for decades. Raymond Moloney’s death in 1958 triggered a rough patch for the company, with Bally almost falling into bankruptcy before a buyout and revival in 1963.
The revival was built upon the release of Money Honey, an innovative electromechanical slot machine. Featuring an electric hopper, the machine was able to handle larger and more complex payouts than purely mechanical machines. This raised expectations for slots and set up Bally as a market leader. By the end of the 1960s, it was estimated that Bally controlled nearly 90% of the worldwide slot machine market.
The 1970s and 1980s would see Bally use its profits to grow into a large umbrella company. Bally built the Park Palace Casino and Hotel in Atlantic City in 1979 as its first foray into casino operation.
Its electronics division attempted to enter the home video game market with the ill-fated Bally Professional Arcade.
Their acquisition of Midway Manufacturing in the 1960s would bear fruit as it dominated the arcade and home video game markets through its distribution of hits like Pac-Man and Space Invaders.
By the end of the 1980s, Bally owned the Six Flags chain, a set of health and fitness clubs and multiple casinos. This expansion proved to be draining. The Bally parent company would begin to separate and sell off its diverse divisions in the early 1990s to avoid financial hardship.
The slot machine division, now a subsidiary branded as Bally Entertainment, would be acquired in 1996 by the Alliance Gaming Corporation.
Founded in 1968, Alliance had its own long storied history. It began as Advanced Patent Technology, with a focus on developing new electronics and medical products.
Starting in 1979, the company tried to enter the rapidly growing gambling industry by buying the United Coin Machine Company and developing the Colorado Belle casino near Las Vegas.
Its 1985 merger with Omega Gaming allowed it to enter the video slot market. The next decade would see more property development, several rebrandings and a few mergers until it settled as the Alliance Gaming Corporation in 1994.
The merger with Bally Entertainment was a somewhat messy affair. Alliance Gaming hoped to compete for space against the dominant IGT in the newly developing riverboat and Native American casinos by joining with the still powerful Bally in 1993.
Early negotiations failed though, as Bally Entertainment ultimately sought a merger with WMS Industries. After a few lawsuits and a hostile takeover attempt, Alliance Gaming won out in 1995 with the merger completing in 1996. Bally ultimately became a subsidiary called Bally Gaming and Systems.
Following the merger, Bally grew and adapted to the changing markets by innovating gameplay. They focused on building more entertaining machines and providing powerful systems for casinos.
In 2006, it would go through its final name change, with Alliance Gaming renaming themselves Bally Technologies. After 8 years, Bally Technologies would be bought out by Scientific Gaming in 2014.
Scientific Gaming made its mark on the gaming industry with innovations in instant lottery games, including development of online lotteries and a mobile gaming app for retail lottery games. Somewhat poetically, this brought Bally under the same umbrella as WMS, which had been also bought by Scientific Gaming.
The Bally legacy lives on today as a leading slot machine developer and brand within the Scientific Gaming powerhouse.
Bally slots have been a part of the gambling industry for more than 85 years. Regardless of ownership or non-gaming commitments, the company has always been interested in new gambling opportunities created by the latest technological advancements.
Bally’s online games have always been well-regarded among players and operators alike due to the company’s long-standing commitment to technological excellence, the games’ production values, and the ease of integrating them into existing casino platforms.
The best Bally slot games
Slot name | RTP | Paylines | Reels | Theme |
---|---|---|---|---|
Anchorman | 96.3% | 25 | 5 | Movie tie-in, ‘70s |
Michael Jackson King of Pop | 96.04% | 25 | 5 | 80s, Big-name license |
Hot Shot Progressive | 96.04% | 40 | 5 | Classic |
Cirque Du Soleil Kooza | 96% | 40 | 5 | Circus, Pop culture license |
Lucky Tree | 96% | 30 | 5 | Chinese |
Acorn Pixie | 96% | 30 | 5 | Fantasy, Fairies |
Fu Dao Le | 96% | 243-way system | 5 | Chinese |
Triple Cash Wheel | 95.3% | 60 | 5 | Retro, Classic |
Quick Hit Platinum | 94.06% | 30 | 5 | Classic, Retro |
Shadow Diamond | 94% | 40 | 5 | Jewels, Luxury/Glamour |
Duck Dynasty | 94% | 15 | 5 | Big-name license, Reality show |
Lady Robin Hood | 94% | 40 | 5 | Fantasy, Medieval |
Cash Wizard | 94% | 30 | 5 | Fantasy, Magic |
NASCAR | - | - | 5 | Motor racing, NASCAR |
Heavenly Riches | - | 40 | 5 | Chinese, Eastern |
Bally slots are best known for their gorgeous visuals and crisp sound effects, and the brand has always been associated with pushing the boundaries of production values.
Bally was the first company to popularize slots with video displays instead of mechanical reels, and many of the cabinets it designed were packed with powerful hardware.
In 1999, the company surprised everyone with the quality of its EVO slots, and it did it again in 2005 with the powerful ALPHA systems. Thankfully, this didn’t change when Scientific Games (SG) acquired Bally Technologies. Bally slots are still a joy to look at and play.
Bally slots: game spotlights
Bally has released countless high-quality slots that won the hearts and minds of casino enthusiasts from all over the world, such as Money Honey, Betty Boop, and the Hot Shot series. Below is an overview of three contemporary Bally games that have been trending in internet casinos in 2019.
- Lucky Tree – five reels, 30 paylines, free spins, and a pick ’em bonus round. This slot has a lucky Asian theme, but it’s clearly superior to Shuffle Master’s 88 Fortunes in terms of production values. It also has four wild symbols that tend to trigger plenty of line wins, which lowers the variance to a very low level. Combined with cute designs, this makes Lucky Tree an excellent choice for players who like to relax and enjoy the casino experience over prolonged periods of time.
- Michael Jackson King of Pop – five reels, 25 paylines, and five bonus features rounds. The land-based version of this musical slot runs on ALPHA Pro Series V22/32 hardware and is equipped with an integrated surround-sound chair. While the online version can’t really replicate this experience, there’s no better way to play an online slot while listening to Smooth Criminal.
- Quick Hit Platinum – five reels, 30 paylines, and an internal progressive jackpot. It’d be easy to dismiss this game as yet another entry in the immensely successful Quick Hit series, but the visual improvements resulting from the switch to ALPHA 2 Pro hardware and the low house edge make it definitely worthwhile. The symbols are based on traditional designs, such as bars, cherries, bells, and sevens in red, white, and black.
Special slots features
Many of the features introduced by Bally slots were groundbreaking at the time of their release but are now considered standard in the industry.
Bally rolled out the first video slot machine, which was called Money Honey, and pioneered wide-area progressive jackpots with the Thrillions system. Nowadays, Bally slots don’t come with any distinctive features aside from the buy-a-bonus function, which allows players to spend a predetermined amount of coins to trigger the bonus round.
The bonuses are priced in a way that doesn’t affect the return-to-player (RTP), but they give users an option to enjoy the slot in a new, adrenaline-pumping way.
Online slots and land-based machines
Land-based Bally slots are designed to be as visually appealing as possible, so every spin activates numerous animations and special effects. The online versions of these slots utilize the same resources, such as slot symbols, sounds, music tracks, and background graphics, but they generally come with less eye candy.
For example, the land-based version of Acorn Pixie features animated golden leaves that fall from the screen, pixie dust, and gorgeous animated pixies that burst out from their symbols on successful spins. In the browser-based version, players get the same pixies with fewer animations and fewer special effects.
This isn’t done out of laziness on Bally’s part; the internet games have to be small enough to be downloaded, even with a slow mobile connection. In fact, Bally boasts an outstandingsize-to-eye-candy ratio as their online slots come with standard casino visuals in a more static form and load within five or ten seconds on standard broadband.
Even so, players won’t be able to get the perfect Bally casino experience online.
Select games and payback percentages
As demonstrated by the examples below, the RTP for Bally’s video slots tends to fall within the 94% to 96% range, which is average for modern slot machines. Some examples:
- Cash Wizard – 93.99% RTP
- Fu Dao Le – 96% RTP
- Lady Robin Hood – 94% RTP
- Acorn Pixie – 95.91% RTP
- Hot Shot Progressive – 96.03% RTP
- Anchorman– 96.03% RTP
- Michael Jackson King of Pop – 96.01% RTP
- Lucky Tree– 96% RTP
- Cirque du Soleil Kooza – 96% RTP
Bally slots history
Name | Bally Technologies |
Founded | 1932 |
Top slot | Michael Jackson |
Special slot feature | Buy a Bonus |
Land-based games | Yes |
Online games | Yes |
Parent company | Scientific Games |
Bally Manufacturing
The Bally Manufacturing Corporation was founded in 1932 by Raymond Moloney to make pinball games for its parent corporation, Lion Manufacturing. Its name was derived from its first game, Ballyhoo.
In the years leading up to World War II, the company began designing cutting-edge mechanical slot machines for the developing U.S. gambling industry.
The outbreak of hostilities forced Bally to switch to the production of munition and airplane parts, but after the war, the corporation returned to manufacturing gambling hardware. In the ‘50s, it launched its own line of vending machines and a short-lived record label, Bally Records.
The 1960s
Moloney died in 1958, and with Lion Manufacturing going out of business, his heirs decided to sell Bally Manufacturing to a group of investors.
Despite these succession-related difficulties, the company managed to corner the global slots market, accounting for 90% of all machine sales at the height of its popularity. In 1964, Bally released the first-ever video slot game, which was called Money Honey.
By the end of the decade, Bally Manufacturing made several important acquisitions, which included Midway Manufacturing and Guenter Wulff-Apparatebau, and became a publicly traded company.
The 1970s
In the late 1970s, Bally expanded its operations, making forays into the land-based casino business in New Jersey and into the fledgling video game industry.
The company launched its own gaming console, called the Bally Astrocade, and acquired licenses for two of the most popular video games of all time – Pac-Man and Space Invaders. Despite these successes, Bally’s president, William O’Donnell, was forced to resign due to his alleged ties to organized crime.
The 1980s
In the early 1980s, Bally went on an investment spree, expanding its fitness division and purchasing the Six Flags amusement park chain and the Health and Tennis Corporation of America.
They also acquired several large casinos, including the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino (renamed Bally’s Las Vegas), the MGM Grand Reno, and the Golden Nugget Atlantic City (renamed Bally’s Grand, and then The Grand – A Bally’s Casino Resort).
The returns on those investments were lower than expected, and Bally had to sell several divisions, including Midway, to avoid a financial crash.
The 1990s and Alliance Gaming
After the rather disastrous 1980s, Bally underwent a management change and was renamed Bally Entertainment Corporation. The new leadership focused on fitness products as Bally Gaming was dethroned by IGT in the casino-equipment industry.
Their plan was to sell this division to WMS Industries, but this plan was thwarted by a hostile takeover attempt initiated by Alliance Gaming Corporation, which was backed by Kirkland-Fort Worth Investment Partners.
In the end, Bally’s board of directors capitulated, canceled the deal with WMS, and approved the merger with Alliance. The transaction was completed in June of 1996.
The 2000s
The 2000s were a period of growth for Bally and Alliance Gaming.
The EVO and EVO 3 platforms that were rolled out in 1999 and were replaced by even more advanced ALPHA slots in 2005. As a result, Alliance Gaming changed its name to Bally Technologies Inc. in 2006 to present a unified identity to the customers.
As Alliance/Bally became laser-focused on gambling, several other companies that weren’t related to this corporate structure released non-gambling products under the Bally brand. These products included Bally/Williams pinball machines and Bally Total Fitness products developed by Bally France.
Present day
In November 2014, Bally Technologies was acquired by Scientific Games for $3.3 billion plus $1.8 billion in assumed debt. Much like WMS, which was purchased by SG in 2013, Bally was fully integrated into the new corporate structure. Nevertheless, Scientific Games continues releasing slots under the Bally brand, allowing Bally to retain its unique identity.
Bally investors
The Bally brand is owned by the Scientific Games Corporation, which is a publicly traded company listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market (NASDAQ: SGMS).
As of January 2019, the largest shareholders in Scientific Games include Fine Capital Partners LP (9.75% ownership), Sylebra HK Co. Ltd. (9.40%), BlackRock Fund Advisors (6.04%), The Vanguard Group Inc. (5.36%), Whale Rock Capital Management LLC (3.73%), EastBay Asset Management LLC (3.50%), and Stone House Capital Management LLC (2.44%).
Fine Capital Partners LP increased its ownership in SGMS by 30.24% in December 2018 by buying 2.1 million additional shares.
Bally management and corporate structure
Bally Technologies has been completely integrated into the Scientific Games corporate structure. The former chief executive officer (CEO) of Bally Technologies, Richard Haddrill, was employed as executive vice chairman at Scientific Games in December 2014.
He became a vice chairman of the Scientific Games Board of Directors in February 2018 and has been serving in this capacity ever since. The current president and CEO of Scientific Games is Barry Cottle.
Scientific Games Board of Directors
- Ronald O. Perelman (Chairman)
- Barry Cottle (President, CEO, and Director)
- Richard Haddrill (Vice Chairman)
- Peter A. Cohen (Vice Chairman)
- David L. Kennedy (Director)
- Gerald J. Ford (Director)
- Paul M. Meister (Director)
- Michael J. Regan (Director)
- Barry F. Schwartz (Director)
- Frances F. Townsend (Director)
- Gabrielle K. McDonald (Director)
- Kneeland C. Youngblood (Director)