The Bally Manufacturing Corporation was founded by
Raymond Moloney on January 10, 1932, when Bally's parent Lion Manufacturing established the company to make
pinball games, taking its name from its first game "Ballyhoo". The
Chicago-based company quickly became a leading pinball maker. In the late 1930s, Moloney began making gambling equipment and had great success developing and improving the mechanical
slot machines that were the core of the early gaming industry. The company manufactured munitions and airplane parts during
World War II, then continued producing innovations in flipperless pinball machines, bingo machines, payout machines, and console slot machines through the late 1950s. They also designed and manufactured vending machines and established a coffee vending service. They also made a brief venture into the music business with the record label
Bally Records. Moloney died in 1958, and the company briefly floundered. The parent company failed financially, and Bally was bought out by a group of investors in 1963. Throughout the 1960s, Bally continued to dominate the slot machine industry, cornering over 90-percent of the worldwide market by the end of the decade. In 1964, Bally introduced the first electromechanical slot machine
Money Honey. Around 1968 it bought the Lenc-Smith company which manufactured Bally pinball and arcade cabinets until 1988. It became a publicly traded company and acquired
Midway Manufacturing in 1969, an amusement game company from
Schiller Park, Illinois.
1970s The company expanded internationally in 1974 when it acquired German company Guenter Wulff-Apparatebau, which was renamed Bally Wulff. In the late 1970s, Bally entered the casino ownership business when gambling was legalized in
Atlantic City, New Jersey. The effort moved forward even though the company was temporarily unable to attain a permanent license for the completed casino. During this period, company head William T. O'Donnell was forced to resign because of alleged links to organized crime, which he strenuously denied. O'Donnell was questioned by the
Moffitt Royal Commission in New South Wales, Australia during an investigation of criminal activities between the US and Australia. He admitted that Genovese Mafia boss
Gerardo Catena once owned shares in Bally, but he claimed to have bought him out. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Midway was renamed Bally/Midway when it was consolidated with Bally's legacy pinball business. It became a primary source of income for Bally as an early arcade video game maker, obtaining licenses for three of the all-time most popular video games:
Space Invaders,
Pac-Man, and
Ms. Pac-Man. the Health and Tennis Corporation of America (which became
Bally Total Fitness) in 1983, and Scientific Games, a
lottery terminal company, in 1986. To pay down debts, German subsidiary Bally Wulff was spun off into an independent company in 1991. Scientific Games, exercise equipment maker
Life Fitness, and the Reno casino were sold in 1993. The slot machine manufacturing division was spun off as Bally Gaming International, ending the company's involvement in manufacturing. The company opened
Bally's Saloon & Gambling Hall, a
riverboat casino in
Mhoon Landing, Mississippi in December 1993. It was moved to
Robinsonville in 1995 and became part of a joint venture with
Lady Luck Gaming. In 1994, the company changed its name to Bally Entertainment, to reflect its focus on the casino business and the fact that it no longer had any manufacturing operations. It also announced that the health club business would be spun off to shareholders, to further narrow its focus on casinos. In June 1996, Bally Entertainment agreed to be acquired by
Hilton Hotels Corporation. The sale was completed on December 18, 1996 for $3 billion ($2 billion in stock plus $1 billion in assumed debt). Two years later, Hilton's casino division, including the former Bally properties, was spun off as
Park Place Entertainment, named for the address of Bally's Atlantic City. In 1999, Park Place bought
Caesars World, and in 2003 changed its name to Caesars Entertainment. It was acquired in 2005 by
Harrah's Entertainment, which took the name Caesars Entertainment Corp in 2010, and was eventually acquired in 2020 by Eldorado Resorts to become the current
Caesars Entertainment. ==Legacy of the name==