Episode 392: Dalton Ely
The 4x Georgia state champ is getting ready for the North American Championships, but his 2024 has already been a big year. You can catch him on stream either live or in chat, and check out his...
Highlights
- Dalton Ely has won two tournament-prize pinball machines: Rush (at InDis high-stakes event) and Iron Maiden (at Pin Masters)
- Dalton reports his pinball tournament winnings on his taxes as income and deducts tournament entry fees, travel, and equipment expenses
- Scott Kuthais, a top Georgia player, mentored Dalton and was instrumental in his competitive development before recently passing away
- Dalton Ely is ranked near the top in both IFPA overall and pro rankings; last year he was in single-digit rankings
- Dalton began competitive pinball in February 2018 at Portal Arcade after hearing about it in late 2017; this marked his first IFPA-sanctioned tournament
- The Pinball Profile Played in America tour sold out immediately (within one day) and exceeded capacity
- On Rush pinball, hitting all six colored records creates a 3X shot multiplier for all mode shots in that mode; stacking with Time Machine multiball provides rapid point accumulation
- Dalton has experimented with 4,000% mode boost on La Via Strangiato with glass off, resulting in approximately 15 billion points
Notable quotes
“Put faith into your skill. You know what to do. Just do it.”
“If it weren't for him [Scott Kuthais], you probably would never have heard of me. You probably wouldn't know who Dalton Ealy is.”
“I always enjoy watching tournament pinball whenever it's streamed. I love connecting with the Twitch chat members and I love answering questions that people always ask me in chat about what to do.”
“You're the Bob Ross of pinball.”
“I'm one of them guys that just learns by doing. I love just playing the games and figuring stuff out. I hardly ever do glass-off testing unless if I'm just goofing around.”
“Once you get them all locked in, they become pulsing records. If they're pulsing, that's what current mode is lit at the time machine. but if you keep hitting the records, you will increase your mode boost percent.”
Entities
- Chicago Expo· event
- IFPA World Championship· event
- Indisc· event
- Pin Masters· event
- Pinball Profile Played in America tour· event
- Wizards World· event
- Yegpin· event
- District 82· organization
- Portal Arcade· organization
- Brian Broyles· person
- Colin McAlpine· person
- Dalton Ely· person
- Emoto· person
- Escher· person
- Jason Zoller· person
- Jeff Teolis· person
- Jim Belsito· person
- Kaylee George· person
- Pin Monk· person
- Scott Kuthais· person
- Stephen Ely· person
- Iron Maiden pinball machine· product
- Rush pinball machine· product
More from Pinball Profile
→ All content from Pinball Profile
Episode 439: Emily Reilhan
Talk about a banner year…and it’s only June! Emily has won everything under the sun so far in 2026 as you’ll hear, including the Women’s World Championship, the WNACS, the first ever Women’s...
Episode 438: David Morris of Phantom Amusement
If you’re ever in Manitoba, Canada, check out their growing pinball scene. David talks about the birth of the creating a pinball environment with the Manitoba Pinball League, the MPC, his arcade...
Episode 437: The Pinball Capital’s Francis Wisniewski
Good luck this weekend with the Grand Opening, including a Roger Sharpe appearance, a signed Bank Shot machine giveaway and more! Find out about this huge arcade in Stone Park, Illinois, and hear how...