What country produces the best pinball players in the world?
If you’ve ever wondered which countries produce the most top-ranked pinball players, the IFPA Lit 5000 tells an interesting story. While competitive pinball is truly global, it’s far from evenly spread.
A small number of countries account for a large share of the world’s top-ranked players. These are places with lots of machines, regular IFPA-sanctioned tournaments, strong leagues, and active local scenes. Simply put: more opportunities to play high-quality competition leads to higher rankings.
That said, it’s not just about size. Some smaller countries punch well above their weight, producing an impressive number of ranked players relative to population. Lets take a look:
No real surprises that the home of pinball is also home to almost 2 out of every 3 players, and when adding in Canada, North America produces over 70%. If we take those two out, let’s take a deeper dive on the rest:
Australia and New Zealand make up close to 22% of non North American players, representing the strong scene down under. Europe makes up the bulk of the rest, with the relatively short distances between countries making it easy to attend WPPR heavy tournaments. We did find it surprising that Italy was under-represented considering the proud history of Zaccaria pinball.
However there’s one country that stands out – 🇸🇪 Sweden, with a population of just over 10 million, is pound for pound outperforming all other countries. Add in the fact that currently 2 of the top 5 ranked players are Swedish, we hereby crown Sweden as the best pinball country in the world 👑.
We’ll be interested to track how player distribution changes over time. If you want to know how your country stacks up in the IFPA rankings, you’re in the right place.