Many of the events take place at the homes of local pinball enthusiasts on their private collection. As a result, a membership is required to join SPL, although guests are welcome to participate in events before choosing to sign up as a full member.

Membership is $35 for the entire season, which runs from February through December. It is not required that a member participate in every event, although more participation does increase an individual's chance of making it to the final 16. New memberships are not accepted after June 30th, although players can continue to play as non-members until the next SPL season.

Entry fee for each event is $6 for members, $12 for non-members and guests.

Non-members and guests are not eligible for the end-of-year tournament of champions. Please note that due to events being held at private homes, location of the events is sent to the email list of members only. If you want to the information for a particular event in order to attend as a guest, please send email to spl@splpinball.com.

Monthly Event Formats

Each monthly event is run as a self-contained tournament, using one of three formats:
- VRPA (Vancouver Regional Pinball Association) Format
- PinGolf Format
- Round Robin

The host of the event selects the format to use, as well as some options to the format such as how many rounds and how many players move on to the next round. The format to be used in a particular event will be announced at least one week prior to the event date.

VRPA Format: In the first round, players are separated into groups of 3 or 4 players, based on their handicap, such that similarly handicapped players are in the same group. Each group plays five games. In a 4-player game, a 7-5-3-1 scoring is used (7 points for first, 5 for second, 3 for third, 1 for fourth). In a 3-player game, a 7-4-1 scoring is used (7 points for first, 4 for second, 1 for third). After all players have played five games, scores are tallied among all groups. The top 16 players move on to the next round, and split into four groups based on their handicaps. The second round is played as three games, with a 4-2-1-0 scoring (4 points for winner, 2 points for second, 1 point for third, no points for fourth).

Depending on the host's choice, one of four options is used for the remaining rounds:
- 16/8/4, Old PAPA Style: top 8 of 16 in total points go on to semi finals. In semi finals, top 4 of 8 in total points move on to finals.
- 16/8/4, New PAPA Style: top 2 in each group of four go on to semi finals. In semi finals, top 2 of each group move on to finals.
- 16/4, Old PAPA Style: top 4 of 16 in total points go on to finals.
- 16/4, New PAPA Style: winner of each group goes on to finals.

PAPA is the Professional and Amateur Pinball Association, one of the major governing bodies that runs the largest pinball tournaments in North America, and producers of the papa.tv pinball-only Internet TV Channel.

Tiebreakers for advancement or final finish placement are often needed. The game used for the tiebreaker is chosen at random by tournament officials and all players in the tie play one game. If there are more than 4 players up for the tie then the group will be divided into 2 or more groups who each play one game. Best score (or scores) across all games played on the tiebreaker game advance.

PinGolf Format: Rules are being revisited by the board. They will be posted here prior to any event using the format.

Round Robin Format: Rules are being revisited by the board. They will be posted here prior to any event using the format.