Charming Pinball Museum saved after raising over $200k in donations
The Pinball Museum is a unique little business located in Las Vegas, full of old pinball machines and arcade games. Many of the games still cost a quarter -- substantially less than they did at the time they were in operation (when a quarter was worth far more than today!)
Unlike other retro gaming businesses which charge high admission fees and $1 per game (often turned onto a "hard" setting, as well), the Pinball Museum is a nonprofit. It seeks just to pay the bills and keep the doors open.
It's also known as the "Pinball Hall of Fame".
The selection of games is excellent, and they even have some pinball machines which were very obscure, even in their time. Even if you're not a pinball guy, the '70s and '80s video games there are also worth the visit.
Most of the machines are in decent-to-good condition. A few don't work very well, and some of them have controllers which are on the verge of breaking, but for the most part they seek to maintain everything in operational condition.
I'm a big fan. At one point it looked like they were going under, after some asshole vandals broke in and destroyed everything, but it ultimately survived.
Unfortunately, COVID sent the Pinball Museum into a tailspin, and it almost went out of business.
However, between an anonymous donor who gave $79,000, and a GoFundme which has raised $140k, it will not only survive, but will actually be moving to a bigger location!
This is good to hear, as the current location is in a strip mall in a seedy area, just east of the strip. The new location will be near the airport, and right by the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign.
The move was approved by the county in 2019, but never happened. Now it's becoming reality, thanks to the donations.
Here's an article about the recent donations: https://news3lv.com/news/local/las-v...sive-donations
The owner claims he donates any excess money beyond paying the bills to the Salvation Army -- a move I feel was a mistake, since he wasn't left with any reserves for fiascos such as COVID or the vandalism. Maybe he's learned his lesson this time.
In any case, I'm glad the place survived. The guy really runs it for the love of the game, and not to make money.
By contrast, an obnoxious bar called Insert Coins opened up in 2011, which was supposedly a bar/nightclub with an '80s video game theme. I was incredibly disappointed. The games were half out of service, the games were all set to the soul-crushing "difficult" level (something very uncommon when the games were popular in the '80s), there was an obnoxious cover charge to get in during prime nights, and the drinks were expensive. Had potential, but they basically cooked the fun out of the entire thing. It was after I went to Insert Coins (which failed after 4 years) that I appreciated the Pinball Museum even more.
