I’m intrigued

There was pretty open gambling in Southern Maryland at that time. There were slot machines being operated all up and down Route 301 in Charles County, a number of the buildings that used to house them were still around as late as the 90’s. Teepee designs and other fanciful stuff etc but I think they’re all gone now. It would be a natural extension to have payout bingos associated with that.

Most bingos from that era had a simple reset where you just power cycle the game, and the credits would mechanically count down (like a knock off switch on a poker machine).

They were legal to operate, but illegal to payout on in most jurisdictions. My grandparents owned a bar in Catonsville and they both got arrested for paying out, along with my aunt LOL.

My dad used to build and operate bingos in Baltimore. It was illegal for Bally (or United I guess) to ship a fully crated bingo with matching serial numbers through state lines, so they would ship pieces of the games with different serial numbers to different areas in the city. My grandpop and dad would pick the parts up, assemble them, and either sell them or put them out.

The lower base cabinet looks like it came from a Bally One Ball pinball machine like the late 1940’s Turf King which the Bingos originated from, but was perhaps painted over to a different design from Key West.

Curious: what was the name of the bar and what street was it located on?

I didn't move to MD until late 1977, but I recall a bar located outside Annapolis that had a bingo machine and a coworker told me they would pay out on it. I also recall the old timers talking about slots and gambling at some of the Cheasapeake Bay beaches in southern MD.

828 bar on frederick rd... it is now ships cafe.

There actually might be a bingo or two out at a couple vfw’s still.

Here’s an old pic of my grandfather bartending there, and a zodiac 20 hole bingo in the corner
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Here’s my Turf King I bought from Bill Doll from York PA. Check out the lower base on the Turf King. It looks like the base on the Key West bingo in this post.

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Slot machines and bingos that paid cash were legal in 4 Southern Maryland counties from 1947 to 1968. While Nevada also had legal slots that paid cash, the rules in Maryland permitted them in every business except those that allowed children. In 1963, there were 9300 slots-bingos in just these 4 counties. They paid taxes and permit fees of 24 million dollars that year, which is of naturally, the reason they were allowed.

Yup.... lots of mob run stuff. Lots of motels and restaurants had bingos and/or slots from Anne Arundel county on down. Permit laws are still on the books from bitd in AACO.... makes it pretty prohibitive to operate anything amusement-wise on a small scale here.

Lots of businesses “mysteriously “ burned down back then too

while those bingo bases were similar in style to the one-ball cabinet, the main difference is the depth of the middle section.

the bingo bases needed space in the front for a slot machine style payout hopper, but that's all that's in the base. Typically four wires were used to connect between the base and the bingo - two for the 120V hopper motor/override solenoid, and two for the coin-out switch that decremented the replay register.

the one ball cabinet housed the bulk of the operating mechanism for the machine on a big slide-out tray, so the cabinet is deep, heavy, awkward ... but easier to service if you have room to pull out the tray all the way.

the bingo bases I've seen/had from nevada are all pretty similar and appeared to be commercially produced. Most of the ones I've seen did not have detailed artwork on them, tho occasionally they color matched and/or extended cabinet lines.

from a player point of view, the base can be a problem if you are relying on leg flex to be able to nudge the ball.

Here's a link to photos of a Bally Roller Derby I once owned that had been converted to a payout game. See the last six photos in the listing. https://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=2003

Payout bingos were legal in Anne Arundel co. Md until 1968. The last one that I played and won nickels was a Silver Sales that (I believe) had factory paint on the base. Here's a related article from the Baltimore Sun newspaper. https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1995-12-07-1995341100-story.html