Dino Theo is a little greedy. See, he didn’t just want a nice home theater and a bar. He wanted both of those—to go along with his killer game room.

When Dino designed his layout, he took a page from the Cineplex handbook, or at least the blueprints. Like many actual theaters, the game room serves as a lobby. However, he’s blown more than a few quarters. Aside from the actual room, those machines start around $600 each, with the high score reaching $7,000 for his ”Medieval Madness” unit.

Currently, the room has a total of five pinball machines, as well as a MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator), which can play an array of classic titles on a regular PC, which is mounted inside an arcade cabinet. Also, aside from the pinball, there are a few slot machines to keep that gambling monkey on your back happy and entertained.

Dino originally added the machines to give the room a more authentic theater lobby feel. “I bought a pinball machine as ‘decoration’,” he says. “After that I was hooked into the hobby.”

Hooked indeed. Like most hobbies, this one also had its learning curve. Dino says there were plenty of challenges, mainly due to where the builder had run electrical wiring. “Since that room was unfinished and was next to a finished room, they didn’t run some of the electrical wires (Romex) inside the studs,” he says. “They were on the backside of the studs, which meant they were facing where the game room was to go.” He also added drywall around some of the pipes and HVAC runs. Not as easy as it sounds, though: “It was me and my wife holding up the drywall while I hurriedly tried to get it screwed in.”

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