For investors

A stranded sport with no supplier

Duckpin is not a niche version of ten-pin — it is the most accessible version of bowling, stranded for fifty years without a machine. Handheld balls with no finger holes mean young kids, grandparents and anyone who cannot grip a house ball are all in the game. No perfect game has ever been bowled in over a century of duckpin. And it runs on the same lane dimensions as ten-pin, so houses can convert lanes without construction.

The gapZero manufacturers make a freestanding duckpin pinsetter. Every duckpin system sold today uses strings, which produce measurably different pin action.
The wedge~35 surviving duckpin centers are a beachhead, not the market. The same machine and platform apply to ten-pin houses adding duckpin lanes without construction.
The moatA configurable distributor that places pins one at a time into any commanded pattern — provisional patent in process — plus the software only that capability makes possible.

Market context

How big this could be

Duckpin is not a small sport by nature. It is a big sport that lost its machine. These are the numbers that frame the opportunity — where duckpin stood when it had working equipment, and how large the bowling market it sits inside remains today.

What duckpin was, with working machines

~450
duckpin centers along the East Coast at the sport’s peak in the early 1960sDuckpin bowling, historical record
300,000
sanctioned duckpin participants in 1967, the high-water markNational Duckpin Bowling Congress history
100
sanctioned duckpin alleys in Maryland alone in the mid-1960sMaryland duckpin history
40,000
sanctioned duckpin bowlers in 1973, against roughly 9,000 in recent countsInside NoVA

The market it sits inside today

67M
Americans bowl at least once a year — the country’s number one participation sportBowling Proprietors’ Association of America / USBC
~3,400
USBC-certified bowling centers operating in the United States todayUnited States Bowling Congress
77,245
certified lanes across those houses, every one of them a candidate for conversionBowlersMart Lane Finder, 2026
1.07M
Americans still bowl in sanctioned leagues across 29,000+ certified leaguesUSBC, 2024-25 season

Reading these together

Duckpin declined for a mechanical reason, not a demand reason. Ten-pin got the automatic pinsetter in the 1950s and roughly doubled its centers in under a decade; duckpin got one machine, from one company, that stopped being built in 1973. The roughly 35 duckpin houses left are the beachhead — the customers who need a machine today and have nowhere else to buy one.

The larger opportunity is the ~3,400 certified centers and 77,000+ lanes already operating in the United States. Duckpin runs on identical lane dimensions to ten-pin, so a house can convert lanes without construction, and 67 million Americans already bowl at least once a year. We are not trying to create demand for bowling. We are trying to give existing houses a second product to sell on the floor space they already have.

Figures above are drawn from public industry sources and are provided for market context only. They are not projections, forecasts, or any representation of Dux Bowling's expected revenue.

Market positioning

Where we sit

Switch between the machine and the platform, then tap any competitor to see where they sit and why. The detail stays put until you tap another, and each links out to that company's own product page.

Market positioning
The machine
TEN PIN — EASIERDUCKPIN — HARDERLEVEL OF DIFFICULTYSTRING — LESS AUTHENTICFREESTANDING — MORE AUTHENTICLEVEL OF AUTHENTICITYBrunswick GS NXTQubicaAMF XLi EDGEBrunswick Boost STQubicaAMF EDGE StringFlying AEROPINMini bowling systemsBrunswick Duckpin SocialFunk Bowling duckpinInfinity Bol duckpinFlying FSDB duckpinSherman duckpin setterDux Setter
Dux Setterfreestanding duckpin

Freestanding duckpin action with no strings, built on catalog industrial parts — and a distributor that places pins one at a time into any pattern you ask for.

No freestanding duckpin pinsetter has been manufactured since Sherman ceased production in 1973; surviving machines run on scavenged parts. Every duckpin system sold today is a string pinsetter.

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