Pachinko: Unregulated Gambling in Japan

Pachinko is a game, which has a nature of gambling as discussed below, is very popular in Japan.

People can plan pachinko at a pachinko parlor, which can be usually found anywhere there are many people, such as near stations, shopping arcade, and like.

Pachinko is a very simple game.  Player fist buy certain amount of small balls whose diameter is around half an inch.  Put the balls into the machine, which is vertically placed as in the above picture, and fire the balls one by one.  If the ball goes into certain places of the machine, then player can get more balls.

The balls can be exchanged to prizes, such as daily products.

But many players exchange the balls for money.  In Japan, however, private gamble is not allowed, and thus, players can't directly get money for the balls.  Instead, players first exchange their balls for certain products at the pachinko parlor, which are used just like as tokens, take the products to an exchange place outside the pachinko parlor, and exchange them for money.

It sounds wired to insist that the above is not gamble, but everything is currently overlooked and is not regarded as gamble.  Yes, form gets over substance here.

As far as I know, pachinko became very popular among common people after WWII.

Pachinko machine was first manually operated.

If you see the bottom right of the machine in the above picture, there is a device to flip a ball.

The machine then incorporated more electronic device and computer operations, which expedite a win or lose much more quickly and increase the gambling nature of pachinko dramatically.

The current pachinko machine looks more intending for friendly natures by using designs of famous idol or manga characters, for example.

It has been pointed out that many people, including house wives and retired people, become pachinko addict.  I think such a result can be easily expected under the current unregulated situations surrounding the pachinko industry.

As mentioned above, many pachinko parlors are located in our neighborhood, like next door of a grocery store.

It is not sane that such an unhealthy gambling place has that easy access in our normal life.

It has to be improved.

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