Location: 1610 E. Tropicana, Las Vegas NV 89119, USA.

It's been three years since we last visited the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. On his tour of the US, our roving reporter John visited Las Vegas and had to call in to see it for himself. Here's what he found.

In September 2012, we visited the Las Vegas as the last but one stop on our trip to the USA.

The Las Vegas strip

We took the bus #201 to the Pinball Hall of Fame (PHoF) one sunny afternoon.

The bus to the PHoF

Arriving at the PHoF

The total number of pinballs was around 200. It was absolutely amazing, since I had never seen so many pinballs in one location. Most importantly, they were kept in very good condition.

A small selection of the machines in the PHoF

I saw many of my favourite vintage E-M & S-S pinballs there, and this brought back a lot of memories from my childhood. 

Superman and The Amazing Spider-Man

They were The Amazing Spider-Man, Big Hit, El Dorado, Golden Arrow, High Hand, Quick Draw, Jacks Open, King Pin, Kiss and Star Trek.

Hey! It's not difficult to guess my age, is it ?  (^o^)

King Pin & Drop-A-Card

One electro-mechanical and one solid-state; Quick Draw and Pinball

More machines

Gottlieb wedgeheads

Bally dot matrix machines

As for the newest solid-state pinballs, I only tried a few, such as 24, X-Men and Harley Davidson.  In fact, I love older pinballs (1970-1990) more than the newer ones (post- 2000).

Some of the newer machines

More machines

The newest machines from Stern

The latest arrival: X-Men Magnato LE

I wanted to approach Tim Arnold – the owner of PHoF - a couple of times, but I was not successful because he was fully occupied by other people.   Finally, I reached him around 9pm when he was seriously repairing a pinball.  

The repair area

According to Tim, the PHoF is non-profit making, and it also made regular donations to local charities.  I was touched by his passion for pinball and his charity, although he looked quite cold and was not all that talkative.

I had stayed in PHoF until 10:30pm when I was pulled out from the museum by my wife.  I It was then I realised I had not had my dinner.  Finally, we had hamburgers in a nearby 7-Eleven before going back to our hotel; the Excalibur. 

In addition to PHoF, we also visited several casinos in Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon.

The Grand Canyon

Although I don’t like gambling, I still feel Las Vegas is very good place for visitors.

More Information

• Business hours: Sun-Thu: 11:00-23:00 & Fri-Saturday: 11:00-24:00
• Website: www.pinballhall.org
• Comments: machine conditions ranged from ‘good’ to ‘excellent’.
• Transportation:  Take the bus #201A or #201B and drop off at the bus stop 'Spencer'.

The place to disembark from the bus

• You can reach PHoF with another 3 minute walk.  The bus costs $2 per single trip and the service runs 24 hours a day. 

© Pinball News 2012