Funspot in Laconia, New Hampshire, and Galloping Ghost Arcade in Brookfield, Illinois, both carry the title of “world’s largest arcade.” Only one can technically hold the claim, but a visit to each makes the debate feel secondary to what both have actually built.
Laconia is a town of fewer than 17,000 people situated near Lake Winnipesaukee. For most of the year it moves quietly, interrupted once annually by the arrival of roughly 300,000 motorcyclists for Bike Week. The rest of the time, its biggest draw is Funspot, a sprawling entertainment complex whose origins trace back to 1952, when Robert M. Lawton founded it as an indoor mini-golf and penny-arcade pavilion.
Funspot: A Living Archive
Funspot has grown in uneven layers over the decades. Its architecture reflects that history: a loose collection of connected buildings spread across a gentle slope, housing a 20-lane bowling alley, a mini-golf course, a small go-kart track, and a cafeteria. None of that is why serious arcade visitors make the trip.
The real draw is the American Classic Arcade Museum, known as ACAM. The nonprofit organization was the idea of Gary Vincent, a long-time Funspot employee who proposed gathering the venue’s scattered collection of vintage machines into a single dedicated space. Funspot owner Bob Lawton approved the concept in September 1998.
“I was always, even as a young kid, fascinated by museums. There was just something about them,” Vincent said. He noticed the same reaction in visitors who stumbled across classic cabinets like Defender or Ms. Pac-Man, and decided to formalize it.
Today ACAM is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit housing roughly 270 vintage arcade machines, nearly all of them playable. A small number of especially rare titles sit sealed inside acrylic enclosures. One is Mystic Marathon. “We have one of the five original prototypes that was made to test the game,” Vincent said. “This is the one that actually belonged to Kristina Donofrio, the woman who programmed the game.” The room itself, red-carpeted and kept at dim but navigable light levels, delivers the ambient sound of dozens of machines running simultaneously.
Galloping Ghost: Scale as the Point
Galloping Ghost Arcade sits about 45 minutes west of Chicago in Brookfield, Illinois. Its exterior gives nothing away. Inside, the venue holds more than 1,000 arcade cabinets alongside 46 pinball machines, a collection large enough to make a credible case for the “world’s largest” label on sheer volume alone.
Where Funspot leans into history and curation, Galloping Ghost competes on density. The two arcades are solving different problems, which is partly why both can occupy the same superlative without it feeling like a genuine contradiction.
The Title Is Almost Beside the Point
The “world’s largest” framing matters less than what each venue represents. Funspot has been building its identity for over seven decades, layering entertainment options around a core that now functions as a working museum of early arcade culture. Galloping Ghost built its identity around accumulation, turning scale itself into the attraction.
Both are in the United States. Both draw visitors willing to travel significant distances. The debate over which holds the legitimate title will likely persist without resolution, since the two venues measure size by different standards. For visitors, that ambiguity is the least interesting thing about either place.
Photo by Hennie Stander on Unsplash
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