diff --git a/pkgs/misc/emulators/mame/default.nix b/pkgs/misc/emulators/mame/default.nix
index a9901fa3dccc..f83e26c28ce1 100644
--- a/pkgs/misc/emulators/mame/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/misc/emulators/mame/default.nix
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-{ stdenv, mkDerivation, fetchFromGitHub, makeDesktopItem, makeWrapper
+{ stdenv, mkDerivation, fetchFromGitHub, fetchpatch, makeDesktopItem, makeWrapper
 , python, pkgconfig, SDL2, SDL2_ttf, alsaLib, which, qtbase, libXinerama
 , libpcap, CoreAudioKit, ForceFeedback
 , installShellFiles }:
@@ -51,7 +51,15 @@ in mkDerivation {
   # by default MAME assumes that paths with stock resources
   # are relative and that you run MAME changing to
   # install directory, so we add absolute paths here
-  patches = [ ./emuopts.patch ];
+  patches = [
+    ./emuopts.patch
+    # Make the parallel build reliable -- see https://github.com/mamedev/mame/pull/7279
+    (fetchpatch {
+      name = "fix-mame-parallel-build.patch";
+      url = "https://github.com/mamedev/mame/commit/13a54fd4e8b8b1a4aad77671562b2d9ef3d82e1f.patch";
+      sha256 = "1p4bszir9hcdjx6am58p48zh17rhjzlhx2baiacas7fnig61i02n";
+    })
+  ];
 
   postPatch = ''
     substituteInPlace src/emu/emuopts.cpp \