I knew pachinko was popular in Japan but wow. And it almost certainly grew during the pandemic.
> Pachinko parlors and slot machines, the country’s largest form of gambling, raked in more than ¥23.3 trillion ($203 billion) in 2015 according to Bloomberg. That’s more than the combined earnings of Las Vegas, Singapore and Macau—or about 4% of Japan’s GDP.
The gambling component is also effectively illegal, because you can't win money from the games directly. You can, however, win tokens, which a little shop conveniently located right next to the pachinko parlor will buy off you in exchange for cold hard cash.
Like everything else in Japan, though, pachinko is also slowly dying off as the population ages, and the long-planned/long-delayed opening of actual casinos will also cause a big hut.
That’s astounding. For comparison, gambling is 0.2% of GDP in the US (60.4 billion [1] / 25.46 trillion [2]). And I thought we had a gambling problem here.
Funny thing is, officially pachinko is not gambling, people just happen to exchange the gained goods for money at unmarked counters afterwards, wink wink nudge style.
I'd argue micropayment games should also fall into that grey area, same as the trading cards markets.
Of course many players (pachinko included) don't see it as gambling and more as a very expensive hobby, in that they effectively expect no return on the money.
How widespread is gambling in the U.S.? Approximately 85% of U.S. adults have gambled at least once in their lives; 60% in the past year
BTW pachinko is officially not gambling, it shouldn't be compared with the money spent in Casinos. It is more like a lottery where the price is tokens, not money. Most play it as a hobby, just like many people spend a ton of money fishing without ever catching anything.
It’s actually decreased pretty significantly since 2015. In 2021 the amount spent was 14.6 trillion. But yes, still an enormous amount of money and time spent at pachinko halls.
14.6t jpy is about 3% of GDP.
There are about 7m pachinko players in Japan - 10% of Japan's working population.
Doesn't that mean they are losing 30%~ of their pre-tax income on this? Keep in mind that pachinko players often aren't that particularly wealthy, so more than 30% really.
Of all the gambling establishments, accessible to the public anyway, pachinko has been the most disturbing to me. Pachinko halls are assaults on the senses, cigarrette smoke engulfs you as you enter, while an unintelligible cacophony of noise pierces your brain. You have to yell to be heard, and none of the noise is useful, so loud it somehow distorts your hearing. Should you sit down, there is nothing to see but your machine and thousands of blinking lights around you. Your senses are essentially stripped from you and the only way to achieve joy from that position is to pull the lever or leave. That anyone would bear such an environment to gamble tells you just how much of a grip gambling can take on someone.
You have to take into account that Japanese do not place nearly as much emphasis on human-to-human relations as much as the west does. Things like kaiten sushi (revolving sushi) and advanced vending machines are popular because customers don't have to interact with another human being.
A particularly advanced line of vending machines that recorded and recommended drinks to you even garnered unprecendented levels of love from its customers because they felt it was more relatable and comforting than an actual waiter.
Pachinko parlors being a space where it's just you and the machine in front of you (and all the noise around you) is thusly a positive factor rather than a negative one.
In general, Japanese just don't like dealing with humans if it can be helped. Interacting with machines is by far preferred.
Disclaimer: I'm a nisei (second generation) Japanese-American.
> Japanese do not place nearly as much emphasis on human-to-human relations as much as the west does
This to me is just an offensive and ignorant comment. Just goes to show you that this Orientalist trope still exists. 2nd gen removed you’re practically foreign.
Disclaimer: I’m not Japanese but I’ve been to an obon festival and an onsen, not pachinko parlors.
There is something called "Japanese people theory" (日本人論), which is actually still popular in Japan. We are far from its peak, but most people who lived through this wave still believe it.
I suspect OP's parents might have been caught in the peak of this wave. It takes Japanese exceptionalism to illogical levels. Everyone caught a glimpse of this during COVID, when television presented a theory that the Japanese language didn't spread the virus.
The casinos I've been to were as much theme parks as they were gambling houses; simply walking around in them taking in the atmosphere was an experience in their own right.
Most pachinko parlors by contrast hardly have any room. There are rows of pachinko machines with small stools in front, and there's barely room to walk around. It's just you and the machine in front of you, and all the noise; careful not to bother the guys sitting either side of you. I'd say they are very different from casinos outside of their gambling nature.
I think the poster making a sweeping generalization on such a large group of people is poor form.
My opinion, based on living in Japan and spending a lot of time around Japanese people, is the generalizations likely applies to a large portion of the population, but I have doubts whether it even applies to the majority.
But does it apply to them uniquely? Is there no population of, say, Europeans or Americans who prefer to order things on Amazon than interact in person? To dislike Walmart greeters? Or sit at a slot machine?
Just seems like a preference that’s trivial to find across humanity.
It is, for me, the number one most annoying aspect of life in Japan.
Every country has this - a large part of the population that has never been abroad and holds certain beliefs that would crumble upon closer inspection.
But when you get the word "Japan" in the mix, the individual suddenly disappears, and everything is explained away by cultural or genetic differences.
I really like the Cambridge Companion to Modern Japanese Culture. It takes you through many of these distortions, and how they came to be.
Maybe you aren't familiar what second generation means: Born to Japanese parents. It's from third generation onwards when you really start having nothing to do with your heritage.
I also speak Japanese fluently as to be indicernible from native speakers and visit Japan on a nearly annual basis to see family and friends across the pond. I'm practically Japanese in everything but birthplace and nationality, Japanese folks just assume I'm one of them unless I mention to them otherwise.
You're quite welcome to disagree and engage in discourse, but I would appreciate more credibility and substance than "I'm a foreigner who's been to a festival and an onsen".
That was sarcasm. If you didn’t get, it’s a counterpoint to you about something something non-communal people. I’m quite familiar with issei-nisei-sansei. I’m not qualified to speak about your experience. When I first came to Japan I instantly loved it in so many ways and I visit yearly to take random walks.
If you’ve ever seen the movie “Lost In Translation”, you might find a pachinko parlor scene or two in there. It’s the shallowest of all movies and won an Oscar and I came to realize this is how many people caricature and fantasize Japan. My reaction was the same as this reviewer: https://stanforddaily.com/2021/05/19/the-egregious-racism-ag...
Japanese exceptionalism and 日本人論 strikes again! This is the sort of thing that actually hides a lot of the value in some interesting innovations.
Kaitenzushi requires less staff, and is a viable business with clear financial advantages over a full waiter staff. It also happens to be popular every place that there is one, from China to South Africa to Canada.
Most Japanese innovations make more sense when you think about the implications of a rapidly shrinking labor force. One person can service many vending machines, whereas stores need to be one person at least.
One interesting thing is that as Japanese rural train services disappear due to becoming unaffordable when the countryside empties out, the bus services meant to replace them also have issues finding bus drivers.
Additionally many people at least sometimes don't feel up to talking with other people to get their needs fulfilled.
I, for example, stopped getting my hair cut by a professional, because I discovered myself being anxious that the person understood my wishes about the hair cut style. Sometimes I prefer to cook instead of dining out. And so on.
I think the future will be machines where a large language model takes on orders of people. Japan already shows how that might look like.
> Japanese do not place nearly as much emphasis on human-to-human relations
Is this because of how their society has developed over the last 50 or so years, or has it always been a trait of Japanese society.
Because if the decay of human-human relations is itself a symptom of a bigger social problem from the recent past, then it might not be fair to consider it a trait of Japanese people generally.
I think it's a little of everything, if you ask me.
Obviously the low birth rate and population drop means there are just straight up less people, especially in the countryside, but also obviously there's still enough people to make Tokyo among the most population-dense metropolitan centers in the world.
Japanese society itself strongly eschews individualism in favor of uniformity and conformity, and there are many social etiquettes and mannerisms that further complicate human interactions and relations. Depending on how social and expressive you are, it really can be tiring enough that you might want to avoid extraneous interactions.
Japan has also been fond of mechanical constructs since time immemorial. In ye olde days it was karakuri ningyous (mechanized puppets), and in more recent times it has been robots ranging from the cute (Doraemon) to the super (GaoGaiGar, et al.) to the fantastical (Evangelion, et al.) to the "real" (Gundam, et al.) to really advanced vending machines and companion robots (eg: Aibo). Japan simply doesn't share the west's fear of machines (read: Terminator, HAL, et al.).
In short, while the west holds human interactions and relations as absolute necessities for a proper society, in Japan they entail a lot of social baggage. A lot of Japanese happily prefer the warm glow of a vending machine to a cashier, as sad as that might sound to many here.
Comparing it with the article, the documentary seems a little low on research and high on drama.
> Japan’s National Police Agency registered around 82,000 missing persons in 2015 and noted that some 80,000 had been found by the end of the year. Only 23,000 of them had remained missing for more than a week
while there are still many daily rate apartments, Yokohama's Kotobukicho is now full of institutions serving poor elderly, or people with mental/addiction/health problems that cant get by in regular society. It's fairly innocuous place to walk through.
From time to time I use VoiceOver to read for me when I can’t. I did here and this page is an impressive level of broken: not only does voiceover never find the article and keep reading the meta text (e.g. menus) it apparently triggers the infinite scrolling as it does, so it reads meta text forever and it fucks off wherever with no possibility to ever find the original location when you stop it (in fact I had to switch tab to kill that one because VO had apparently triggered a bunch of loading and the page kept bouncing around and doing stuff long after I’d stopped VO).
Thankfully Time has not broken reader (other sites do, triggering reader just gives you an empty page), and that fixes VO, as it often does.
46 comments
[ 29.9 ms ] story [ 1625 ms ] thread> Pachinko parlors and slot machines, the country’s largest form of gambling, raked in more than ¥23.3 trillion ($203 billion) in 2015 according to Bloomberg. That’s more than the combined earnings of Las Vegas, Singapore and Macau—or about 4% of Japan’s GDP.
Like everything else in Japan, though, pachinko is also slowly dying off as the population ages, and the long-planned/long-delayed opening of actual casinos will also cause a big hut.
Huh? Aren't old people the biggest audience for it?
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1332999/gross-gaming-rev... [2] https://www.statista.com/topics/772/gdp/#topicOverview
I'd argue micropayment games should also fall into that grey area, same as the trading cards markets.
Of course many players (pachinko included) don't see it as gambling and more as a very expensive hobby, in that they effectively expect no return on the money.
[0] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6313083.stm
US players gamble $511bn per year with unlicensed operators, report finds
https://igamingbusiness.com/legal-compliance/us-players-gamb...
there's also this
How widespread is gambling in the U.S.? Approximately 85% of U.S. adults have gambled at least once in their lives; 60% in the past year
BTW pachinko is officially not gambling, it shouldn't be compared with the money spent in Casinos. It is more like a lottery where the price is tokens, not money. Most play it as a hobby, just like many people spend a ton of money fishing without ever catching anything.
https://www.statista.com/topics/7427/pachinko-in-japan/#topi...
Doesn't that mean they are losing 30%~ of their pre-tax income on this? Keep in mind that pachinko players often aren't that particularly wealthy, so more than 30% really.
A particularly advanced line of vending machines that recorded and recommended drinks to you even garnered unprecendented levels of love from its customers because they felt it was more relatable and comforting than an actual waiter.
Pachinko parlors being a space where it's just you and the machine in front of you (and all the noise around you) is thusly a positive factor rather than a negative one.
In general, Japanese just don't like dealing with humans if it can be helped. Interacting with machines is by far preferred.
Disclaimer: I'm a nisei (second generation) Japanese-American.
This to me is just an offensive and ignorant comment. Just goes to show you that this Orientalist trope still exists. 2nd gen removed you’re practically foreign.
Disclaimer: I’m not Japanese but I’ve been to an obon festival and an onsen, not pachinko parlors.
I'm curious; are you also arguing that you are less credible than the parent poster?
I suspect OP's parents might have been caught in the peak of this wave. It takes Japanese exceptionalism to illogical levels. Everyone caught a glimpse of this during COVID, when television presented a theory that the Japanese language didn't spread the virus.
I'm just pointing out that pachinko parlors can (and do) appeal to Japanese folks in ways that westerners might not appreciate.
I'm just pointing out that there is nothing Japanese about enjoying a high charged environment.
Most pachinko parlors by contrast hardly have any room. There are rows of pachinko machines with small stools in front, and there's barely room to walk around. It's just you and the machine in front of you, and all the noise; careful not to bother the guys sitting either side of you. I'd say they are very different from casinos outside of their gambling nature.
My opinion, based on living in Japan and spending a lot of time around Japanese people, is the generalizations likely applies to a large portion of the population, but I have doubts whether it even applies to the majority.
Just seems like a preference that’s trivial to find across humanity.
Every country has this - a large part of the population that has never been abroad and holds certain beliefs that would crumble upon closer inspection.
But when you get the word "Japan" in the mix, the individual suddenly disappears, and everything is explained away by cultural or genetic differences.
I really like the Cambridge Companion to Modern Japanese Culture. It takes you through many of these distortions, and how they came to be.
I also speak Japanese fluently as to be indicernible from native speakers and visit Japan on a nearly annual basis to see family and friends across the pond. I'm practically Japanese in everything but birthplace and nationality, Japanese folks just assume I'm one of them unless I mention to them otherwise.
You're quite welcome to disagree and engage in discourse, but I would appreciate more credibility and substance than "I'm a foreigner who's been to a festival and an onsen".
If you’ve ever seen the movie “Lost In Translation”, you might find a pachinko parlor scene or two in there. It’s the shallowest of all movies and won an Oscar and I came to realize this is how many people caricature and fantasize Japan. My reaction was the same as this reviewer: https://stanforddaily.com/2021/05/19/the-egregious-racism-ag...
Kaitenzushi requires less staff, and is a viable business with clear financial advantages over a full waiter staff. It also happens to be popular every place that there is one, from China to South Africa to Canada.
One interesting thing is that as Japanese rural train services disappear due to becoming unaffordable when the countryside empties out, the bus services meant to replace them also have issues finding bus drivers.
I, for example, stopped getting my hair cut by a professional, because I discovered myself being anxious that the person understood my wishes about the hair cut style. Sometimes I prefer to cook instead of dining out. And so on.
I think the future will be machines where a large language model takes on orders of people. Japan already shows how that might look like.
Is this because of how their society has developed over the last 50 or so years, or has it always been a trait of Japanese society.
Because if the decay of human-human relations is itself a symptom of a bigger social problem from the recent past, then it might not be fair to consider it a trait of Japanese people generally.
Obviously the low birth rate and population drop means there are just straight up less people, especially in the countryside, but also obviously there's still enough people to make Tokyo among the most population-dense metropolitan centers in the world.
Japanese society itself strongly eschews individualism in favor of uniformity and conformity, and there are many social etiquettes and mannerisms that further complicate human interactions and relations. Depending on how social and expressive you are, it really can be tiring enough that you might want to avoid extraneous interactions.
Japan has also been fond of mechanical constructs since time immemorial. In ye olde days it was karakuri ningyous (mechanized puppets), and in more recent times it has been robots ranging from the cute (Doraemon) to the super (GaoGaiGar, et al.) to the fantastical (Evangelion, et al.) to the "real" (Gundam, et al.) to really advanced vending machines and companion robots (eg: Aibo). Japan simply doesn't share the west's fear of machines (read: Terminator, HAL, et al.).
In short, while the west holds human interactions and relations as absolute necessities for a proper society, in Japan they entail a lot of social baggage. A lot of Japanese happily prefer the warm glow of a vending machine to a cashier, as sad as that might sound to many here.
1: https://youtu.be/HF5x_24kKOM
> Japan’s National Police Agency registered around 82,000 missing persons in 2015 and noted that some 80,000 had been found by the end of the year. Only 23,000 of them had remained missing for more than a week
Thankfully Time has not broken reader (other sites do, triggering reader just gives you an empty page), and that fixes VO, as it often does.
(More like "A Certain Man").
https://movies.shochiku.co.jp/a-man/
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ある男
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man_(film)