Entry No. 56 — the Pueblo file — filed under: arcade-play
Manitou Springs Penny Arcade (Arcade Amusements)
Open since 1933 and sprawling across roughly eight connected buildings, this is one of the West's largest and oldest arcades, packing 400-plus coin-op machines into a single block. The mix runs from century-old mechanical and antique penny machines to vintage pinball and the latest modern video cabinets, alongside skee-ball, photo booths, and a famous English-made 12-horse Derby race game. Much of it still runs on real coins, and the open-air layout is a genuine piece of living arcade history.
The story
In 1933, Jack Kerns opened a floor in Manitou Springs called Bingo Jacks. When the Colorado Attorney General decided that for-profit bingo qualified as illegal gambling, Kerns didn't pack up—he swapped out the bingo cards for coin-operated amusements. That pragmatic pivot spiraled across the next nine decades into an eight-building maze absorbing almost an entire city block along Manitou Avenue.
You aren't walking into a polished nostalgia bar here; you are stepping into a hoard of over 400 living mechanical relics. The floor spans more than a century of American leisure, running from early 1900s mutoscopes, fortune tellers, and hand-cranked strength testers up through 1970s pinball tables, retro video cabinets, and the prize jewel: a rare English-built 12-horse Derby race game where mechanical steeds move along slotted metal tracks.
The Kerns family ran the complex for 92 years before passing the torch to new owners in 2025, but the soul of the place remains deliberately archaic. You still hear the metal rattle of physical nickels, dimes, and quarters dropping through slot mechanisms rather than the sterile beep of digital wristbands or plastic swipe cards.
What it's like
Expect a dizzying, semi-open-air wander across eight distinct game bays that spill right onto the Manitou Ave sidewalk. The crowd weaves between kids clutching paper tickets and older pinball purists hunting down solid-state machines. Bring actual paper cash to feed into the change machines, keep a jacket handy since doorway breezeways mean weather blows right through the rooms, and claim a spot at the 12-horse Derby console the second you see an empty seat.
The move: Load up on quarters and wander the buildings hunting down the oldest antique machines, then race each other on the vintage 12-horse Derby game.
📍 Before you go Roughly 48 miles from Pueblo; partly open-air, so weather matters, and many machines still take physical coins.
- 📍 Manitou Springs
- 💸 $
- ⚡ Big night
- 🌗 Indoors
Where: 930 Manitou Ave, Manitou Springs, CO 80829
Hours: Added 2026-06-23 — confirm current hours before you go.
Pair it with
- Supernova Bar and Arcade — Swap out antique mechanical penny slots for a 1980s neon barcade experience ten minutes away in downtown Colorado Springs.
- Gather Food Studio & Spice Shop — Pair a morning of feeding quarter-slotted machines with a cooking class in neighboring Old Colorado City.
- Eureka Tunnel Mine — Match early 20th-century coin-op history with actual turn-of-the-century mining history out in the Pike National Forest.
Good to know
Do the machines take real coins or card swipes?
Most games still run on real physical coins—quarters, dimes, nickels, and even pennies. Change machines are scattered throughout the buildings to convert paper cash into coins.
How far is the arcade from Pueblo?
It is roughly 48 miles north of Pueblo, situated in downtown Manitou Springs just west of Colorado Springs at the foot of Pikes Peak.
Can you win prizes here?
Yes. Redemption games like skee-ball dispense physical paper tickets, which you can save up and take over to the dedicated Skee-Ball building prize counter.
Is the arcade open all year?
The arcade operates year-round, though hours shift seasonally and several spaces are open-air or unheated, making winter visits significantly chillier. Always double-check current hours before making the drive.
Plan a visit & invite your people →
Further reading: Official site · Atlas Obscura · Yelp · fox21news.com · Tripadvisor
last checked: 2026-06-23