Pinball Hall of Fame Living in Las Vegas there is never a shortage of entertainment. While most out of towners hit The Strip, us locals hit the attractions that normally found off-Strip.
Aug 11, 2018 - Located three miles from the Strip on Tropicana Avenue, the Pinball Hall of Fame is a 10000-square-foot collection of vintage pinball machines.
The Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas is for sure one of those “free things to do in Las Vegas” that is a must for gaming enthusiasts. But, if you love retro video games like me, it will cost you a few quarters to play some of the old-time favorites that will take you back to your teen years of Galaga and PacMan. Pinball Hall of Fame Las Vegas Overview The Pinball Hall of Fame opened in Paradise, Nevada in January 2006. It is a project of the Las Vegas Pinball Collectors Club, and it features pinball machines from all eras, including some very rare machines such as Williams’ Black Gold, Bally’s Pinball Circus, and Recreativos Franco’s Impacto.
It features approximately 400 different pinball games, including some classic video arcade games and other novelty machines of the past and present. The museum is a nonprofit venture and its creation came about in part due to donations, which are still accepted. The museum is run by Tim Arnold, a veteran arcade operator who ran “Pinball Pete’s” in East Lansing, Michigan.
Fully staffed by volunteers, excess revenues are donated to the Salvation Army. Pinball Hall of Fame Location The Pinball Hall of Fame is located at 1610 E Tropicana Ave, Las Vegas, NV 89119. Grab a roll of quarters and head out for some family fun. All the profit from your quarters will be donated to the Salvation Army! Sounds like a win win to me!
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Save some quarters for the popcorn machine. We went through “a few” bags while there.
For the most part, a pinball machine is just a pinball machine. To some folks, though, it's a kinetic monument to a simpler time when mindless entertainment didn't necessarily involve sex, hyper-violence or the pixelated undead, a perfectly designed blend of challenge, workmanship and skill.
In Tim Arnold's world, it's all these things and more besides. How else to explain his Pinball Hall of Fame, a functioning museum of sorts where more than 100 operational pinball machines spanning seven decades are on show? The Pinball Hall of Fame is a true mecca in a city of replicated ones. Over the years, Arnold has assembled a vast array of machines from Gottlieb, Bally, Williams and other oddball manufacturers, from gear-and-magnet models to modern digital wonders. Descriptions of each machine's attributed and historic values have been attached to them, most handwritten on index cards. And then, best of all, Arnold invites all-comers to play his machines. All you need is quarters; and if you don't have them, he can change your bills into them.
Arnold has recast some of these machines so visitors can best appreciate their inherent beauty. Take, for example, his painstaking public refurbishment of a 1978 Bally machine devoted to the band Kiss. Paying attention to the smallest detail (excepting, perhaps, an actual drop of Ace Frehley's blood in the back glass), Arnold is like an Italian restoration specialist working on the Sistine Chapel. But while both share a certain reverence in their respective circles, only at the PHoF can you both touch the art and shake it around. In possession of all 384 Gottlieb pinball machines, Arnold claims to have the only complete set of one manufacturer in the world. Sadly, not all of them are on display. When asked to name his favourite machine, he deadpans, “The one with the box full of coins.” It's a straight response from somebody who owned his first pinball machine at age 14 but who always seemed more interested in the collecting and tinkering than the playing.
“It's all I've ever done. It's all I know,” says the man who refers to himself as the simple ringmaster of this peculiar and beautiful show. “Someone's got to wear the top hat.” Posted: Wednesday January 6 2016.