Pachinko – The Japanese Slots

I know, I know – this blog is dedicated to European casinos. I get it, but sometimes, we, as Europeans, need to take a good, objective look at other cultures, if only to find out what we’re missing, wouldn’t you agree? At the end of the day, casino isn’t something that’s set in stone, and just because certain games have remained staples of it throughout the years that doesn’t mean more games from foreign markets can’t be added, right? So with that said, I’d very much love to talk about a topic that absolutely fascinates me – Pachinko machines! You know how gamblers in the West are absolutely obsessed with slots, to the point where the overwhelming majority of online casino profits come from slots? Well, pachinko machines are kind of the same thing, but for Japanese players. But it doesn’t stop there! There’s actually a pretty fascinating story behind Pachinko machines and how they were used to beat a very conservative gambling system.

In most, if not all EU countries, all you have to do if you want to gamble is walk into a casino, pick the game you want to play and go to town! Problem is, the overwhelming majority of gambling is banned in Japan. You can bet on horse racing and on very few moto sports, as well as on certain government-sanctioned lotto games, but that’s about it. Still, gamblers gonna gamble, and they’re not about to let little things such as “laws” and “regulations” to get in the way! Problem is, most people don’t really want to go to jail either, so a certain work-around had to be created which was both legal AND allowed players to gamble. That work-around was, of course, Pachinko machines.

Now, much like slots, Pachinko machines in and of themselves aren’t very fun (if you’d like to learn more about how they’re played you can check out this hilarious video by Gaijin Goomba, who specializes in Japanese culture), even if (again – like slots) they provide a lot of spectacle in terms of flashing lights and music. They’re traditionally classified as an arcade party game, of the type that dispenses tickets which you can use to win prizes (mostly toys and other small objects like that). But the gamble-minded Japanese were like “Wait a minute! Toys? That’s kinda like money, right?” So this is the scheme they set up: They began creating pachinko parlours which had nothing but pachinko machines in them, and you could win tickets from them which you could exchange from prizes. And then literally right next door they would set up a store where you could exchange said prizes for money, with the prizes going back to the parlour. That way the parlour got cheap prizes for its (few) legitimate players, the gamblers could gamble and earn real money and the best part was that the entire operation was entirely legal! Guess it’s true what they say about limitations breeding creativity, huh?