It's obviously possible or there wouldn't be people doing it. But with 40-50% of receipts going to the location owner it can't be an easy thing to do. I would not advise giving up your day job.

I do run pinball on location. I also have jukeboxes, ATMs, Cranes and other games. Pins are by far the lowest earning to cost. With that said you get the best return on the sale with pinball. I can run a stern pro for a couple years, clean it up and get 80% to 90% of what I paid after making a few thousand. If I didn't love pinballs personally, I wouldn't operate them.

There's a Stern Star Trek with over 30k plays on it documented on pinside that still looks reasonably good. Keep them up and they last. But if you want to route them, you better love pinball because you're not going to get rich doing it.