[citation needed] In North America it was both a child's toy and a gambling mechanism for adults, and involved catching a ring rather than a ball.

In some Native American tribes it was even a courtship device, where suitors would challenge the objects of their interest to a polite game of ring and pin.

[1] Ring and pin games in general were known as ᐊᔭᒐᒃ ajagak, ayagak, and ᐊᔭᖁᒃᑐᒃ ajaquktuk in Inuit dialects.

[4] The game had its golden age during the reign of Louis XV — among the upper classes people owned baleros made of ivory.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau mentions the game early in his Confessions when stating his reservations about idle talk and hands, saying "If ever I went back into society I should carry a cup-and-ball in my pocket, and play with it all day long to excuse myself from speaking when I had nothing to say.

Her other nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh, later praised Austen's own skills at the game, saying "she has been known to catch it on the point above a hundred times in succession, til her hand was weary".