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they can be found everywhere in japan clustered around train stations or busy retail strips
garish neon lip parlors the air inside thick with cigarette smoke techno music and the
deafening clang of thousands of careening steel balls 24 hours a day row upon row of patrons sit
before large cabinets intently as these balls bounce their way towards a potential payout
this is pachinko the national pastime and obsession of japan filling much the same
niche as slot machines or video lottery terminals pachinko attracts some 7.8 million regular players
every year more than one in 16 japanese citizens yet unlike its north american cousins pachinko is
not regarded as gambling at least not officially casino-style gambling has been illegal in japan
for over a century so pachinko parlors are instead classified as an amusement service along the
same lines as video game arcades but through a convoluted system of loopholes and workarounds
pcinco operators managed to skirt the gambling laws and grow the pastime into a massive industry
that generates up to 25 trillion yen or 250 billion dollars every single year nearly four
percent of japan's total gdp and more than the total gambling revenues of las vegas
macau and singapore combined it is a controversial fixture of japanese culture a seedy underground
economy with ties to the yakuza and corrupt police officers which has been blamed for
countless social ills from crippling addiction and financial ruin to the deaths of children pachinko
like its cousin pinball which by the way for a time was illegal in parts of the united states
due to it being considered gambling itself until one fateful day when a man played the greatest
game of pinball of all time before lawmakers including sealing the deal by calling his
shot with everything on the line you can see our video when pinball was illegal for more on that
so yes back to pachinko well it traces his origins back to bhagatel a billiard star game
from the late 17th century in which players use a queue to send balls into pockets guarded by
upright wooden pins with a penalty being incurred for every pin knocked over players quickly found
constantly resetting falling pins tiresome so the pins were eventually fixed in place allowing the
ball to be ricocheted off them into the pockets in the late 18th century the board was mounted
at a slight angle and the billiards cue replaced with a spring-loaded plunger creating the game of
japanese bhagatel the ancestor of modern pinball by the 1920s the game had further evolved into a
variant known as corinthian bagatelle or the corinth game which used a completely vertical
pin board around 1924 this game found its way to japan where it became known as patchy patchy and
later pachinko after the clanging sound made by the falling balls at first pachinko machines were
installed in candy shops where children could play to win candy and other small prizes but within
a few years the game had caught on as an adult pastime as well with the first dedicated pachinko
parlor opening in nagoya in 1930. from there the game's popularity skyrocketed in less than six
months 35 parlors were in operation in the kochi prefecture alone however due to the outbreak of
the second sino-japanese war in the second world war all pachinko parlors were shut down between
1938 and 1946 in order to conserve raw materials and manpower for the war effort after the war
however the pachinko industry grew faster than ever reaching a peak of 387 664 registered parlors
or three parlors per square kilometer in 1953. the game quickly became a national obsession
accounting for nearly half of all japan's leisure activities in 2016. traditional pachinko machines
are relatively simple devices compared to their slot machine and vlt cousins to play players must
first purchase a tray of balls for around 400 yen or four dollars each these balls are millimeters
in diameter and usually printed with the name or logo of the pachinko parlor the player loads
these walls into the machine one at a time and it launches them vertically using a spring-loaded
plunger originally the player controlled the launching force of the plunger directly but on
more modern machines a knob is provided to adjust the force of an electromagnetically driven plunger
the launching force determines where the ball lands on the vertical grid of metal pins on many
machines the pins are mounted on a rotating drum which also incorporates a series of cups traps
and other obstacles to make gameplay even more challenging the object of the game is to land the
ball in one of the winning slots at the bottom of the machine when this is accomplished the machine
enters a payout mode or reaching which is often accompanied by flashing lights and loud music
during a reaction a large payout gate opens at the bottom of the machine into which the player
must shoot as many balls as possible before the rianchi ends each ball the player lands in the
payout gate releases around 10-15 more balls which are collected in another tray at the bottom of the
machine over the decades pachinko machines have become increasingly sophisticated with
modern examples being seen after popular movies video games and other media and incorporating
video screens featuring complex animations many machines have even replaced the traditional
mechanical pin boards with purely digital ones the payouts being determined by a computer algorithm
a more recent development is the panchi slot machine the japanese equivalent of the north
american vlt or digital slot machine and it's aimed at younger players most panchaka machines
are operated by dedicated parlors which house multiple machines in a single location the largest
of these located in the shibuya fashion district of tokyo houses 1 100 machines on five floors and
can cater to up to fifteen thousand patrons such parlors are usually located around train stations
busy shopping districts and other places with heavy foot traffic and often provide a variety
of extra services for patrons including snack bars and restaurants and even child care facilities and
refrigerated lockers where housewives can leave their children and their groceries while they play
another comment fixture of pachinko parlors are attendants who patrol the rosa machines and swap
out the player's ball trays during payouts so they don't overflow however many experienced players
have mastered the art of firing the plunger turning around quickly swapping out the tray
and turning around to continue shooting without causing mariachi to end prematurely an event known
as a punku or puncture once a player has scored a payout they can either use their extra balls
to continue playing or redeem them for prizes which range from candy and stuffed animals to
rice cookers and noteworthy cash while gambling has been illegal in japan since 1907 this law
only applies to games whose direct payout is in the form of cash this creates a loophole that the
pachinko industry has cleverly exploited to create a lucrative but technically legal gambling market
in order to exchange the pachinko balls for cash players must first redeem them at the pachinko
parlor for so-called special prizes typically gold-colored plastic tokens stuffed animals or
other easy to carry items players must then carry these tokens to a separate shop outside the
pachinko parlor where they can be exchanged for cash the tokens which are micro-tagged to prevent
them from being sold outside the system and then sold back to the jingo parlor at wholesale prices
while the cash exchange shops are typically owned and operated by the pachinko parlor itself as they
are nominally outside of it and separate from the parlor in the eyes of the law the whole system
does not technically count as gambling using this convoluted three-shop system the pachinko industry
has been able to keep operating in a legal gray zone for nearly a hundred years it's totally
gambling though in every way unsurprisingly given its shady and highly lucrative nature for decades
the pachinko industry was dominated by the yakuza or japanese mafia who controlled cash payouts and
extorted large commissions from pachinko parlor operators due to its association with organized
crime pachinko has long been considered to be a dirty business resulting in most parlors being run
by outsiders on the fringes of japanese society in more recent years however the yakuza's grip
on the pachinko industry has been all but broken thanks to a series of major police crackdowns the
industry is now regulated by a dedicated police agency which regularly inspects pachinko parlors
and machines to prevent cheating fraud and tax evasion in an effort to fight the latter in the
1990s the police forced most parlors to switch from cash to prepaid payment cards allowing
transactions to be more closely monitored but while this regime was ostensibly established in
service of the public good critics have accused the police for becoming the new yakuza with
investigative journalist jake adelstein describing the whole regulatory apparatus as the police's
own personal retirement plan yet even beyond his association with the yakuza and corrupt
police agencies pachinko remains a controversial part of japanese culture due to the high rate
of addiction among its players but like las vegas star gambling which lures players with the promise
of large single jackpots the pace and payout rate at pachinko is much slower encouraging long gaming
sessions and loyal repeat customers the plunger ball firing mechanism also adds the illusion of
skill and control making the outcome seem far less random than it actually is some players
have managed to make a living playing pachinko mainly by attending the openings of new parlors or
only playing newer machines which are often rigged to dispense more frequent payouts for the first
few days in order to attract new customers but as with all forms of definitely gambling most
players only lose money up to ten thousand yen or a hundred dollars a day particularly vulnerable
are japanese housewives who typically control the household finances and are less likely to hold
a full-time job giving them more spare time to devote to pachingo this led to the common side of
children being left unattended in cars or on the street as their mother spent hours at the pachinko
parlor however due to a series of high-profile incidents in the late 1990s where a number of
children died of heat stroke while waiting for their mothers most bajingo parlors now display
no children allowed signs and parking lots are regularly patrolled for unattended children yet
despite its nearly century-long hold on japanese life and culture the pachinko industry may be in
danger of disappearing altogether the industry has seen significant decline in recent years with the
number of pachinko parlors dwindling from over 380 000 in 1953 to only 17 000 today gross pains have
also dropped from 30 yen to 19 billion yen over the past 20 years and the number of new players
has fallen by half between 2002 and 2012. part of this decline is due to changing demographics
younger players have less spare cash than their parents and are increasingly turning
to mobile apps for their gambling fix today the average pachinko player is in their 40s a number
which skews even older with each passing year new smoking bans have also significantly impacted the
industry as for many years pajama parlors were one of the few places that japanese citizens
could smoke in public but perhaps the greatest threat to pojinko is the very industry for which
it's substituted for nearly 100 years legalized government regulated gambling in december 2016
japanese legislatures passed a law legalizing casino gambling in the country a move that was
expected to add an additional 10 billion annually to the government coffers in the
years since developers have moved quickly to build large integrated gambling resorts which
threatened to supply the traditional pachinko parlor in response the pachinko industry has
lobbied for the passing of a unified pachinko law which would allow pachinko balls to be exchanged
for cash within the parlors themselves and place the industry under direct government supervision
such a scheme advocates hope would give the much long maligned industry much needed legitimacy and
generate an additional two billion dollars in tax revenue meanwhile pachinko parlors are adapting
to the changing gaming landscape by catering to a new generation of more casual players
newer parlors catering mostly to women are cleaner and quieter than older establishments and feature
cheaper one-yen balls and lower payouts creating a more relaxed atmosphere free of the stress and
stigma traditionally associated with the past time such changes have allowed the industry to increase
profits as the number of parlors continues to dwindle with net earnings growing from
3.5 to 3.8 million dollars between 2017 and 2018. thus despite recent challenges it appears
that the signature clang of the pachinko parlor will continue to be heard across japan for some
time to come so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did please
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