Full Game Room Buildout: Every Line Item Priced
A full game room buildout with an 8 ft slate pool table, a 12 ft shuffleboard, a four-player arcade cabinet, pinball, air hockey, a double-tap kegerator bar, sound and finished flooring comes to $15,656 in equipment, plus $300 to $600 for slate installation and $200 to $600 for a dedicated circuit. It wants roughly 433 square feet.
This is the room built once, properly, with nothing deferred. Two anchor games that use different shapes of floor, a four-player arcade cabinet, a real pinball machine, air hockey for the children, a bar with two taps on it, sound that works over a game, and a floor that was chosen rather than inherited. The equipment adds up to $15,656, and the two costs that are not on any product page, slate installation and a dedicated circuit, add $500 to $1200 on top.
Before a single item is ordered, resolve the floor plan. The pool table demands 14 ft by 17 ft 8 in of clear floor and nothing else may live inside that band. The 12 ft shuffleboard wants 7 ft 6 in by 18 ft, which is narrow enough to run along a wall. The four-player cabinet needs only 3 ft 10 in by 11 ft including the standing zone. Work it out with the room size calculator and the multiple games guide before ordering anything that needs a delivery appointment.
The complete buildout, $15,656
At this tier the table is chosen on cabinet and finish rather than on whether slate is worth it, because slate stopped being a question two tiers ago. The 8 ft size is the one to take if the room genuinely measures for it.
| Item | Why this one | Qty | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Playcraft Charles River 8ft Slate Pool Table | Leather drop pockets, chestnut cabinet, 8 ft slate. Past three thousand dollars the money buys joinery and finish rather than a straighter roll, and this is the version of that trade worth making: it reads as furniture in a finished room instead of reading as equipment. | 1 | $2,900.00 | Price |
| Aramith Premium Billiard Ball Set | The ball set most serious home tables run. Phenolic, consistent in weight and diameter across the set, and it stays round for decades rather than years. | 1 | $213.62 | Price |
| GARSEN Canadian Maple 58in Cue Set of 4 | Four house cues so guests are not handling anything precious. Anyone who plays seriously brings their own. | 1 | $56.95 | Price |
| GACCO Floor Cue Stand, 9 Cues | A floor stand for nine cues, which is the right answer in a room where the walls are already doing other jobs. | 1 | $64.99 | Price |
| BearCover Heavy Duty 8ft Table Cover | A fitted cover. In a room that also holds a bar, this is what stops one spilled drink from becoming a $300 re-cloth. | 1 | $42.99 | Price |
| AKLOT Billiard Cloth Brush Set | Brushed along the nap after each session. Doubles cloth life for twenty dollars. | 1 | $19.99 | Price |
| Master Cue Chalk, 12 Cubes | Twelve cubes, which will outlast the cloth. | 1 | $9.89 | Price |
| Anchor game one: the pool table subtotal | $3,308.43 | |||
The second anchor exists because pool is a two-player game and a room full of people needs somewhere for the other six to be. Shuffleboard is the best answer: long, narrow, playable drink in hand, and it runs down a wall that pool cannot use.
| Item | Why this one | Qty | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hathaway Merlot 12ft Shuffleboard Table | A 12 ft cradle with a poly-coated maple playfield and climatic adjusters, which are the screws that let you dial a crown or a dip out of the board as the seasons change. Twelve feet is the shortest length that still plays like real shuffleboard. | 1 | $1,598.99 | Price |
| Sun-Glo Speed 1 Super Glide Powder | Speed 1 Super Glide powder. Faster than the powder that ships with most tables, and speed is the entire feel of the game. Buy two speeds and learn which one your board likes. | 1 | $58.52 | Price |
| YDDS Shuffleboard Pucks, Set of 8 | A spare set of eight. Pucks get chipped and mismatched pucks slide differently, which quietly ruins the game. | 1 | $47.99 | Price |
| Anchor game two: shuffleboard subtotal | $1,705.50 | |||
The part of the room that people walk toward first. Cabinets need almost no side clearance because they can stand shoulder to shoulder, which makes them the most space-efficient games here by a wide margin.
| Item | Why this one | Qty | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Top Us Arcades 4-Player 4600-Game Cabinet | A full size four-player upright with a 32 in screen and a genuinely deep library. Four players matter more than the game count: a four-player cabinet is a party, a two-player cabinet is a queue. | 1 | $3,199.00 | Price |
| Wonderland Alice Goes to Wonderland Pinball | A real pinball machine at roughly a seventh of the price of a new Stern. Solid state, home-use build rather than route-hardened, which is the correct trade for a machine that will see a few hundred games a year rather than a few thousand a month. | 1 | $989.99 | Price |
| MAYFLASH F300 Arcade Fight Stick Optional | An arcade stick for the screen corner, so fighting games work on the couch as well as at the cabinet. | 1 | $59.99 | Price |
| Arcade and pinball subtotal | $4,248.98 | |||
Air hockey takes the middle of a room and darts take a wall that is otherwise dead. Between them they cover the two things pool and shuffleboard do not: fast, loud, and playable by children.
| Item | Why this one | Qty | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atomic Top Shelf 7.5ft Air Hockey Table | A 7.5 ft table with a commercial-grade blower rather than the household fan in cheaper tables. Blower strength is the whole difference between air hockey and pushing a puck across a plastic sheet. | 1 | $1,099.00 | Price |
| Viper Hudson Solid Wood Dartboard Cabinet | A solid wood dartboard cabinet that closes. In a finished room, the doors matter: they turn a board into a piece of wall furniture. | 1 | $75.64 | Price |
| Franklin Grade A Staple-Free Dartboard | A staple-free sisal board. Thinner treble wires means fewer bounce-outs, and you notice it the first evening. | 1 | $52.31 | Price |
| Viper Wall Defender III Surround | A surround that catches the darts that miss. In a finished room with painted drywall this pays for itself once. | 1 | $79.99 | Price |
| Red Dragon Pegasus 24g Tungsten Darts | 24 g tungsten. Slim barrels group in a treble bed where brass will not. | 1 | $38.00 | Price |
| The third game and the wall games subtotal | $1,344.94 | |||
A bar is what turns a room with games in it into a room people stay in. Built from cabinets rather than joinery, because a $140 cabinet with outlets in the back does ninety percent of what a built-in does at five percent of the cost.
| Item | Why this one | Qty | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kegco K309B-2 Double Faucet Kegerator | A double faucet kegerator, which is the item that defines this tier. Two taps rather than one so a stout and a lager can live in it at once, and a digital thermostat so you are not guessing. Wants its own circuit. | 1 | $869.63 | Price |
| Aheaplus 67in Bar Cabinet with Outlets | A 67 in bar cabinet with power outlets built into the back panel. Glass storage, bottle storage and somewhere to plug in without an extension lead across a walkway. | 1 | $139.99 | Price |
| EUHOMY 130-Can Beverage Refrigerator | A 130-can glass-door fridge for everything that is not beer. Soft drinks for the children, which is what actually gets drunk on a family evening. | 1 | $188.99 | Price |
| VATROS Upholstered Counter Stools, Set of 4 | Four upholstered counter-height swivel stools. Swivel is the detail: at a bar in a game room people turn to watch the table, and a fixed stool makes that awkward. | 1 | $279.99 | Price |
| Nostalgia 8oz Popcorn Cart Optional | A popcorn cart. Silly, and the single most reliably used item in any finished game room ever built. | 1 | $249.99 | Price |
| The bar subtotal | $1,728.59 | |||
The room has to work on the nights nobody wants to play, which is most nights. That is what this group buys.
| Item | Why this one | Qty | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perlegear Full Motion TV Mount, 42-90in | Full motion mount for a 42 to 90 in screen, so it aims at the couch or at the bar depending on the evening. | 1 | $54.99 | Price |
| Samsung HW-B550F Soundbar with Subwoofer | A 2.1 soundbar with a wireless subwoofer. A room with a slate table, a hard floor and a bar in it is acoustically bright, and TV speakers vanish into it. | 1 | $197.99 | Price |
| Edifier R1280DB Powered Bookshelf Speakers | Powered bookshelf speakers over the bar, on a separate source from the television. Music while people play, which is a different job from television audio and is done badly by a soundbar. | 1 | $159.98 | Price |
| SD SODOCT 2in Acoustic Panels, 12-Pack | Twenty four acoustic panels. Not for studio-grade treatment, for taking the flutter echo out of a rectangular basement so people can hear each other over a game. | 2 | $47.98 | Price |
| CANMOV Power Recliner Chairs, Set of 2 | Two power recliners. Game room seating gets sat in for four hours, and a dining chair does not survive that. | 1 | $599.99 | Price |
| FURNIMAT Power Reclining Loveseat Optional | A reclining loveseat to make the screen corner seat four rather than two. | 1 | $799.98 | Price |
| Screen, sound and seating subtotal | $1,860.91 | |||
The infrastructure. Done first, invisible afterwards, and the reason a finished room still looks finished in five years.
| Item | Why this one | Qty | Price | Buy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Diflart SPC Click-Lock Vinyl Plank | SPC click-lock vinyl plank, which is rigid-core and waterproof. In a basement that matters more than the look: a burst supply line ruins carpet permanently and vinyl plank dries out. Eight boxes covers roughly 160 sq ft of walkway and bar area. | 8 | $519.92 | Price |
| Petgrow 24in Commercial Carpet Tiles, 72 sq ft | Commercial carpet tile under the pool table and the shuffleboard. Carpet under a table deadens the room and stops a dropped ball from travelling, and tile means one damaged square lifts out instead of a whole floor. | 2 | $251.98 | Price |
| Wellmet 59in 3-Shade Pool Table Light | The pendant over the pool table, hung 30 to 36 in above the cloth. Task lighting, not decoration, and the thing that makes an expensive table play like one. | 1 | $219.99 | Price |
| Ensenior 6in LED Recessed Lights, 12-Pack | Twenty four recessed cans on dimmers for the room itself. Selectable colour temperature, set to 4000K: 5000K makes a finished basement read as a garage. | 2 | $125.96 | Price |
| KSIPZE 50ft LED Strip Light | Perimeter strip for the ceiling coffer and under the bar overhang. | 1 | $12.99 | Price |
| Kavaas LED Gamer Neon Sign Optional | A neon sign for the arcade wall. Every game room has one and every game room is better for it. | 1 | $29.99 | Price |
| Midea 50-Pint Basement Dehumidifier | A 50 pint dehumidifier, and the cheapest insurance in the room. Slate shims, hardwood cradles, sisal boards and cabinet veneer all move with humidity. | 1 | $197.99 | Price |
| Huuger 5-Tier Open Bookshelf | Open shelving for board games, glassware and the things that otherwise end up on the pool table rail. | 1 | $99.98 | Price |
| Floor, light and climate subtotal | $1,458.80 | |||
Two costs sit outside this figure on purpose, because both are quoted regionally and an invented average would be worse than an honest range. Slate delivery and professional levelling is $300 to $600, plus $50 to $200 for stairs. One or two dedicated 20 A circuits for the kegerator and the cabinets is $200 to $600. Budget above this number.
- Working floor area
- About 433 sq ft
- Pool table band
- 14 ft x 17 ft 8 in
- Shuffleboard run
- 7 ft 6 in x 18 ft
- Air hockey
- 8 ft x 13 ft
- 4-player cabinet
- 3 ft 10 in x 11 ft
- Pinball
- 3 ft 9 in x 10 ft 7 in
- Ceiling height
- 8 ft minimum
- Electrical
- Two dedicated 20 A circuits
Prices were accurate when this list was compiled and change constantly, so confirm each one before ordering. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases, at no extra cost to you.
Where the money actually goes
Four groups carry most of this build, and knowing which ones tells you what to cut first if the number is too large.
| Group | Spend | Can it be added later? |
|---|---|---|
| Pool table and accessories | $3,308 | Hard. It sets the floor plan and needs an installer. |
| Shuffleboard | $1,706 | Yes, easily. Two people and a free wall. |
| Arcade and pinball | $4,249 | Yes. No clearance band, no install, plugs into a wall. |
| The bar | $1,729 | Partly. Run the circuit now even if the kegerator waits. |
| Floor, light, climate | $1,459 | No. This is the part that must happen first. |
| Equipment total | $15,656 | Plus installation and electrical. |
Build sequence, and why the order is not negotiable
- Electrical first, while the ceiling is open. Two dedicated 20 A circuits, one for the kegerator and beverage fridge, one for the cabinets and the pinball. Also the ceiling box for the pendant, positioned over where the table will sit rather than over the centre of the room. Mark the table footprint on the subfloor in tape and drop a plumb line before anyone cuts a hole. Full detail in game room electrical planning.
- Flooring, wall to wall, before anything heavy arrives. Vinyl plank through the walkways and the bar area, carpet tile under the two tables. Laying a floor around six installed table legs is a job nobody does well.
- Lighting and dimmers. Recessed cans on a dimmer, the pendant on its own switch. A game room that cannot dim its overheads cannot watch a film.
- Slate table delivered and levelled. Two to three hours with a two-person crew. Ask to see the machinist level read flat in both directions before they leave, because that is the whole thing you paid for.
- Shuffleboard, and let it acclimate. A hardwood cradle wants a week or two in the room before you fuss with the climatic adjusters, because it is still equalising to the humidity. Adjusting it on day two means adjusting it again on day twenty.
- Bar, cabinets, seating, sound. A weekend, no trades, easily reordered later.
- Dehumidifier on, and left on. From the day the slate arrives.
The costs that are not on a product page
| Cost | Typical range | Why it exists |
|---|---|---|
| Slate table delivery and professional setup | $300 to $600 | A three-piece slate table is assembled and levelled in the room. This is not optional and not a DIY job. |
| Stairs or tight-turn surcharge | $50 to $200 | Most installers charge extra per flight, and slate sections run 150 to 250 lb each. |
| Re-cloth at install (colour change) | $300 to $500 | Cheaper to do while the table is already apart than as a separate visit later. |
| Room-to-room or house move of an existing table | $250 to $500 | Dismantle, move, reassemble, re-level. Dragging a slate table across a floor cracks slate. |
| Dedicated 20 A circuit for arcade and bar equipment | $200 to $600 | A kegerator, two cabinets and a projector on one basement circuit will trip it. |
| Basement dehumidification | $150 to $350 | Cloth, hardwood cradles and slate shims all move with humidity. This protects the expensive things. |
None of these are avoidable at this tier except the re-cloth, which you avoid by choosing the cloth colour at first installation rather than a year later. The full breakdown is in what a game room actually costs.
The tables we name but do not link a buy button to
At this budget you will run into names that Amazon does not stock and never will. Brunswick Gold Crown has been the bar and tournament standard for decades. Diamond is what serious tournaments are played on, ordered from the factory with a long lead time. Olhausen and American Heritage sell furniture-grade slate through dealer networks with installation included. Champion Shuffleboard builds the solid hardwood cradles that serious leagues play on, factory direct. Jersey Jack builds boutique pinball through distributors.
Those are worth knowing about, and you order them by calling a dealer rather than by clicking anything. The buttons next to those names search comparable equipment you can order today, because searching a retailer for a brand it does not stock lands on knockoffs and accessories rather than on the table. If a dealer table is genuinely the right answer for your room, ring the dealer. We would rather tell you that than pretend the honest answer is the one with a link.
What we would add next, past this build
- A golf simulator bay, $1,500 to $6,000. The only remaining thing that changes what the room is. It needs a 10 ft ceiling and a dedicated bay, so it is a room decision rather than a purchase. The golf sim space calculator tells you in thirty seconds whether your ceiling allows it, and the simulator roundup covers the launch monitor and screen combinations.
- A new Stern pinball, $7,000 to $10,000. John Wick , Dungeons and Dragons and Deadpool are the current shape of the real thing. Buy one only after a home-market machine has proved the room plays pinball weekly.
- An alley roller, $1,800 to $4,700. A Skee-Ball Deluxe is ten feet of length and about thirty inches of width, so it fits along a wall that already has something else on it. Nothing in a game room gets played by more people per hour.
- A second beer line and a bigger keg. Cheaper than everything above and it changes more evenings.
Where to go from here
If this is more room than you have, the mid-range build keeps the slate table and drops the arcade and the bar, and the basement buildout covers the moisture, ceiling and access problems specific to below-grade rooms. For the individual pieces, start with the arcade cabinet roundup, the shuffleboard roundup and the kegerator roundup. To price your own combination rather than ours, use the budget planner.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a full game room cost?
The equipment on this page comes to $15,656. On top of that, budget $300 to $600 for delivery and professional levelling of the slate table, $50 to $200 more if it comes down stairs, and $200 to $600 for the dedicated 20 A circuit the kegerator and the arcade cabinets need. A realistic all-in figure for a room like this is $16,156 to $17,056, and it is worth noting that four items account for most of it.
How big a room do I need for a full buildout?
Around 433 square feet as a working figure, with the caveat that shape matters more than area. The pool table alone demands 14 ft by 17 ft 8 in of clear floor, and nothing else may live inside that band. A 12 ft shuffleboard wants 7 ft 6 in by 18 ft but is narrow enough to run along a wall. Arcade cabinets need almost no side clearance and can stand shoulder to shoulder, which is why they are the last thing to worry about. The trick that makes a normal basement hold all of this is that walkway clearance can overlap between games, as long as playing clearance never does.
Does a game room need its own electrical circuit?
A kegerator, two arcade cabinets, a pinball machine, a dehumidifier and a beverage fridge on one 15 A basement circuit will trip it, usually on the evening you have people over. A kegerator compressor alone draws a starting surge well above its running load. Budget $200 to $600 for an electrician to run one or two dedicated 20 A circuits, put the kegerator and the fridge on one and the cabinets on the other, and treat it as part of the buildout rather than as a repair.
Is a home pinball machine worth it?
It is the highest cost per square foot of anything in this hobby and the most mechanically demanding thing you will own. A new Stern professional model runs about $7,000 and a premium closer to $10,000, which is more than the pool table and the shuffleboard combined. A home-market machine at around $1,000 gets you the flippers, the ramps and the noise for a seventh of that, with a build meant for a few hundred games a year rather than commercial route duty. Start there. If it gets played weekly, you will know within a year whether the real thing is worth it.
What order should I build a game room in?
Electrical, then flooring, then lighting, then the slate table, then everything else. That order is not preference, it is dependency: cable and cans go in before the ceiling is finished, flooring goes down before anything heavy stands on it, the pendant has to be centred on where the table will actually sit rather than on the centre of the room, and the table has to be levelled on its final floor. Everything after the table can be moved by two people in an afternoon.
Which single item should I cut if the budget will not stretch?
The arcade cabinet, and it is not close. A full size four-player upright is roughly a quarter of this build and it is the item that can be added later with zero disruption, because it needs no clearance band, no installation and no floor prep. Cutting the pool table changes the room. Cutting the flooring or the dehumidifier costs more later. Cutting the arcade cabinet just means the room has one fewer game in it this year.
Measuring your own room before anything is delivered? The Game Room Layout Planner is the paid version of these pages: 8 printable worksheets you fill in with your own numbers, plus the full PDF, $29.
How we work: we compare published manufacturer dimensions, the governing playing standards for each game, and reviews from owners who live with the equipment. We do not test games in person, and we say so on every page. Clearance figures here are researched guidance for planning a room, not professional advice: measure your own space, and have a slate table delivered, assembled and levelled by an installer rather than moving it yourself.