EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE: The Prince of Pachinko

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Games have changed big time over the years. Like Pachinko. It used to be very mechanical and looked like a vertical pinball machine. Now they have high definition 3-D graphics. The first Pachinko Parlor in the United States was in Carolina Beach many, many moon ago.   And it just so happens that our Extraordinary Person of the Week, Leo Daniels, worked there.

It may not be the bright lights of Las Vegas, but there are definitely jackpots!

“This is what I wanted to do,” Leo Daniels said of opening up a Pachinko Parlor, named ‘Pachinko World’. “I wanted to give people a place to play where they could have fun and not have to worry about it being illegal.”

Leo Daniels has a passion for Pachinko.

“To play the machines,” Daniels said as he demonstrated the game, “all you do is put the balls in the otp tray and then the dial shoots the balls, you control how hard the ball shoots, the more you turn to the right, the stronger the shot, your main objective is to get it to the top left of the game and then in the center hole.”

The first Pachinko Parlor in the United States opened up shop in Carolina Beach decades ago.

“I was a little kid, a teenager, and actually worked at the pachinko parlor in CB,” Daniels said. “I was a ball runner, basically, I would go back and pour balls in the back of machines. I’ve been interested ever since.”

So he opened up his own Pachinko Parlor in Wilmington and you won’t find anything like it in the country.

It really is one of a kind at that has out of towner Roy Publico making a road trip from Georgia to check it out.

“This was a specific trip for this,” Publico said, “bceause it is my understanding that this is the only one in the nations, which makes it special.”

The only one in America. It’s a claim to fame Daniels says was meant to be.

“I thought it was fitting to open up here in Wilmington because the first Pachinko Parlor was in North Carolina(Carolina Beach), and now the only Pachinko Parlor is in North Carolina(Wilmington).”

That very first Pachinko Parlor in America was the very one he worked at as a teen, in Carolina Beach. Now the memory lives on and you can still find him filling the machines with the signature silver balls.

Except now he’s helping folks relive their memories.

He’s creating new ones, too.

And that, Leo Daniels, makes you Extraordinary.

Sidenote: The games run the same way aracades do. Except instead of tickets that you trade in for prizes, you trade in points.
Prizes include drones with cameras and gift cards.

For more information on Pachinko World, click here.

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