A variation on the English game of skittles, ten-pin bowling has been an enormously popular sport in the United States dating back to the colonial era. The first bowling alley was built in New York City in 1840 and from that point on, the game has found great success, especially among the working class. And as with other iconic American sports such as baseball, football and basketball, the 1930s would see the release of numerous arcade games to represent this national pastime.

The first such games were about the same size as your average pinball machine, with two-inch high pins encased in a glass alley that the player would shoot an equally small projectile at. When the 40s came around, bowling games grew in size, thanks to their inclusion as part of a package of shuffle games called Shuffle Alley. This time, the playing surface measured almost 10-feet long, as players guided a metal puck towards the pins, allowing for much more control than in previous versions. Players could now control their velocity better and utilize various bank shots and, as a result, the game became so popular that kits were sold to convert regular shuffleboards into bowling games.

Into the 50s, the pins finally started to grow to a more respectable size and, in the case of United’s Bowling Alley, the puck gave way to a 3” ball. These machines kept the totals automatically and featured alternatives to the traditional method of scoring by offering double and triple score bonuses for strikes if a bonus light happened to be lit up at the time.  As a result of this game’s popularity, the market was soon flooded with hundreds of competitors. Williams introduced Ten Strike in 1957, in which the ball was “thrown” by a small metal human-like figure. The Big Strike Vertical Bowling Machine took an entirely different approach by having a ball shot across a board where it would drop below onto the pins, like an aerial assault.

These games continued to be popular into the 60s, with versions such as 5-Way, which allowed players to chose either regulation play or various non-traditional ways of scoring. But, although bars still ran their weekly tournaments and newer games were introduced, the popularity of bowling games was starting to wane a bit. Coupled with the facts that they took up a great deal of arcade real estate and carried a significant price-tag, their days were numbered. They held on as best they could until the video revolution, but today it is a rarity to see these old behemoths in any arcade and the era of bowling games is but a mere memory.