I'd definitely give the nod to the Portland area over SFBA for location pinball playing. Here's my reasons:

-Density of locations. There are just a ton of places to play in Portland, many within easy walking distance of one another. When I was there last year I literally parked the car in one area then visited 3-4 locations, each with 4+ machines all within a 3-4 block radius. When I go to SF or anywhere in the bay area, I usually need to drive from spot to spot to play 1 or 2 games.

-Availability of current games to play. Using pinballmap.com data, here's a quick comparison of recent Stern games out on location to play. Most of the Portland locations are in Portland itself, while the SFBA locations are more spread out over the entire bay area.

Portland/SFBA

AC/DC: 12/11
Avengers: 8/4
Star Trek: 13/10
Metallica: 17/8
X-men: 10/6

-High number of multiple game locations. Many of the locations in Portland seem to have multiple machines. On pinballmap I count 34 locations in Portland alone with 4+ games. By comparison, SF has 7 locations, Oakland has 2, Alameda has 2, and the SJ/south bay has 3.

The bay area does have some great locations with large collections, like Free Gold Watch, Pacific Pinball Museum, and Phoenix Games, and we have excellent local shows to attend (PAGG, CAX), but in general for location pinball playing I definitely think it's better up north.

Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. Bout 250 pins maybe more in one location. Overflow of about 50 plus pins at the Riviera hotel & casino. Pretty much every pin you can think of is there between these two locations.

I'd love to see some statistics on the public pinball machines / population ratio of some of the mentioned cities. I feel like my city has a decent amount of machines for its size, but I have no idea how it compares to others.

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Emerald City

Hey, all you Boston-area pinheads! There has been an addition to the pinball scene in the area - Pop Bumpers Pinball in Weymouth, MA! It's right on Route 3A, so it's easy to get to! Sorry, there's no beer there, but there are ten classic pins which all play like new (I know they do, because I maintain them!). So, if you want to see more pinball in the Boston area, go out and support the local places!

http://pinside.com/pinball/map/where-to-play/pop-bumpers-pinball-6255-north-weymouth-ma-united-states

NO BEER?
I think it is against the law in Oregon to have a pin in an establishment without beer available.
If not, then it should be.

It took two tries on front of the town licensing board before we got approved for the game licenses. I'd love to have a place that serves beer too, but one step at a time!

Well trust me on this Montreal, Quebec, Canada might be one of the worst

Too many nightclubs lol

Pittsburgh gets my vote...

Last year I did 3 trips to the Twin Cities for Pinball/Burgers and Chicago is closer to me! The pinball locations, the pinball community in the Twin Cites plus the private collections make it a great active pinball city!