Amidst all the glitz and glam of the Strip is a little piece of gaming history. Welcome to the Pinball Hall of Fame.
The owner, Tim Arnold, says that pinball was an important part of his childhood. In an article for Culture Trip, they write that he and a group of friends pooled together their money to buy an old pinball machine from a local pizza parlor. Fingers crossed those never go away!
He retired to Las Vegas in the early 90s and had, at the time, collected around 1,000 machines, but there are anywhere from 150-200 games. Most of them are pinball and cost 25 cents, but there are some sport games or skee ball-esque games. Some of the older games cost as low as 10 cents but newer pinball games can cost as much as 1 dollar. Still, this is an extremely cheap way to spend an afternoon.
The Pinball Hall of Fame was official in 2006. According to Las Vegas’ official tourism blog, Arnold moved into the warehouse and began something called “Fun Nights,” where the games were available to the public with the goal of raising enough money to open the Pinball Hall of Fame.
The vibe of the arcade takes you back to older times with dim lighting helping the neon glow of the classic arcade games really shine. Las Vegas is the perfect space for such an arcade to exist, with the old-school neon lights inside mirroring the lights outside on the Strip.
In 2021, the Pinball Hall of Fame moved into a 25,000-square-foot location on Las Vegas Boulevard. It’s located on the Strip across from the Mandalay Bay.
Location: 4925 Las Vegas Blvd S, Las Vegas, NV 89119