About Cue & Paddle

Why this site exists

Almost every guide to game room equipment is written for someone who already plays. They compare rubber thickness and barrel profiles and rod bearings, and they are often excellent — if you are the player.

They are close to useless if you are the person standing in November trying to buy something good for a brother-in-law who is into darts, or working out whether a pool table will actually fit in the basement.

Cue & Paddle is for that person. We assume you do not play, do not want a tutorial, and mainly need three things: what is a safe choice, what is a nicer choice, and roughly what you are supposed to spend.

What we cover

Six categories of game room table plus a gift section built specifically around buying for somebody else:

• Pool tables — sizing, slate versus MDF, and what to spend
• Ping pong tables — top thickness, indoor versus outdoor, conversion tops
• Foosball tables — what separates a solid table from a wobbly one
• Air hockey tables — why blower strength decides everything
• Dartboards — bristle versus electronic, and the measurements that are fixed
• Multi-game tables — an honest account of where combo tables compromise
• Gift guides — sorted by recipient and by what you want to spend

That currently runs to 58 guides across 7 categories, covering 107 products.

Who writes it

Ryder M. is the hands-on owner behind Magoo Media Group and the person choosing every pick on Cue & Paddle. He built this site to answer the question he kept getting asked: what game table should I actually buy for my family?

There is one author of record here, and the byline on every article is his. We are not going to tell you about a panel of experts, because there is not one — and a site that invents credentials is a site that will invent other things too.

What we do instead is publish our methodology in full, including a plain statement of what we do not do. You can read it on how we pick.

What we will not do

• Claim to have tested things we have not. We have no testing lab. Our picks come from specifications, retailer listings and published expert reviews, and we say so.
• Invent a price. Where we have no verified live price, the button reads “Check price on Amazon” and no number appears.
• Publish star ratings or review counts. We have no first-party rating data, so there is nothing honest to publish.
• Run testimonials. We have no customers. A page with none is better than a page with invented ones.
• Recommend based on commission. Several of our top picks are the cheaper option, and on some pages we recommend not buying at all.

How this is funded

Cue & Paddle earns a commission when you buy through a link on this site, as an Amazon Associate. That is the whole business model — no paid placement, no sponsored rankings, no advertiser influence. The full details are on our affiliate disclosure page.

Publisher

Cue & Paddle is published by Magoo Media Group.

We are an online publisher with no storefront, so there is no phone number or street address to list — we would rather say that plainly than invent one. The way to reach us is email: contact@cueandpaddle.com, or the contact form. Corrections especially welcome.