53 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN APRIL 2021 Co., which is now KPMG—an accounting firm on King Street in Toronto. I had an accounting background, but I never liked it. I’d pursued that career only because my father wanted me to do something like it. I knew that I wanted to own my own business somewhere in the future. I even explored what it would cost to buy a McDonald’s—they weren’t as big then as they are now—but it was still too expensive relative to what I had in my bank account.” Chin turned to selling ice cream at a local shopping centre to gain food franchise experience. “I tried everything,” he admits. “In the end, I couldn’t come up with the money, and my wife didn’t like the cold, so we decided to migrate back to Trinidad.” Then, as now, “Atari” was synonymous with “video game”, and the golden years of arcade gaming saw video arcades becoming as ubiquitous as movie theaters. Chin was mesmerized by what he saw – “these asteroids on black and white screens.” So he came back to Trinidad and decided to try his luck with an arcade. With the initial capital investment to buy four gaming machines, Chin launched the business that would soon earn him the enviable nickname of “Arcade King of Trinidad”. “I started with Pac-Man and Centipede and Space Invaders,” says Chin. “They did fantastically well. That was my first business – it was called Games World – and it led me to opening arcade stores throughout the island.” Chin eventually did one better: to prevent any potential competition, he introduced franchising opportunities using the well-aimed tagline “Have Fun Making Money!” He reports, “I sold about DACHIN GROUP OF COMPANIES
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