Ask around and many will tell you there’s only one place in Las Vegas where 200 pinball machines buzz like a choir and sing the tune of arcade nostalgia. If you guessed the Pinball Hall of Fame, you are correct!
"It is a totally unique place,” said founder and director Tim Arnold. “There's no other place like this on Earth.”
But, there’s a slight chance this Las Vegas staple won't be here forever. It’s a reality that set in a few months ago when Arnold had a small heart attack.
"I am 60 now and I am not as young as I used to be,” he told 13 Action News.
For 26 years, Arnold has treated his machines with tender love and care. He says it’s a skill set he says many applicants don't have.
"I routinely have to make parts by taking a sheet of metal, bending it, cutting it, forming it," he said.
Companies no longer make the integrated chips and circuits needed to repair his machines if they break, so Arnold has been hoarding old parts. His fear is that young applicants don't have a clue how to use them.
Arnold says, "It's more like a medieval skill of making things with a hammer and an anvil."
The Pinball Hall of Fame is a nonprofit museum so you have to love it enough to work for free.
"It's hard to get somebody to doing this full-time and dedicating their life to it, when there's no profit in it for them," said Arnold.
You might be a pinball wizard, sheer talent isn't enough.
If you think you have what it takes to follow Arnold’s footsteps, you can apply face to face at the museum with the master himself.
