Forum - View topicAnswerman - What Is Gambling Like In Japan?
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Merxamers
 Posts: 720 |
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I think it's worth mentioning that a lot of the worst "gacha" mobile games, which make money by exploiting addictive tendencies, come from japan as well. I see posts on the Fate Grand Order subreddit all the time from people who admit to spending hundreds of dollars a month on the game, admitting they have a problem.
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5527 |
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I tried playing Pachinko in Yakuza, but couldn't work out if I was winning or loosing.
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Chrono1000
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Considering that Pachinko prizes can be traded for Yen it sounds to me like the gambling laws are just a way to prevent the Yakuza from having to compete with legal casinos. While there should be strict laws to prevent children from getting into gambling there is little you can when it comes to adults. At the very least by making gambling legal it keeps it in the open.
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mgosdin
 Posts: 1302 Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA |
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Gangsters here in the US are famous for being able to work around, under, over or through any law. I don't expect that the Yakuza are any less creative than their American counterparts. So, any attempt in Japan to legalize large scale gambling is going to run into trouble, lots of it.
Mark Gosdin |
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aodmisery
Posts: 75 |
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Don't fret. I tried playing pachinko in Japan multiple times and couldn't tell what was going on. They had basic instructions in English. But they didn't help much |
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Utsuro no Hako
Posts: 1053 |
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In fact, early pinball machines were used for gambling, and like pachinko machines they didn't have flippers or any other way for the user to control the balls. But then states started banning the machines as games of chance. Manufacturers decided to get around that by adding flippers, but it quickly became apparent that (A) it was possible for people to get extremely good at the game, and (B) people would play even if there wasn't money on the line, so the gambling aspect was removed completely. |
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kinghumanity
Posts: 365 |
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You were losing. That's the point: to entertain and confuse people while taking their money. Pachinkos are gambling in all but name, and they make money in the same way as legal slot machines in the US: by preying on the compulsive gambler after getting them addicted, and using every single psychological trick to convince the gamblers to empty their pockets slowly (and in some cases, quickly). In the US, the problem is worse, since many of the casinos and slot machines are run by the government, incentivizing state governments to ignore the lives ruined so they can keep collecting revenue. |
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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Nevada made gambling legal, that's what first attracted gangsters to Vegas, starting with Bugsy Siegel--The idea that you could pull in gambling customers from other states, without having to hide from police or bribe the Vice Squad. It was only after the big corporate hotel interests like MGM came in that big-casinos had the money and leverage with the US Attorney General and Department of Justice in the 60's to "clean up" Vegas, put regulated gambling in the hands of big business, and the criminal element couldn't compete. (And neither could the native tribes lately, it seems.) Japan kept hard-gambling underground, where it pretty much stayed in the same criminal element it did here in the 50's-60's. Like Japan, Off Track Horse Betting and greyhound-racing were also the "legal" gambling in most states until Lottery-mania came along in the 80's, and then most states chose the less risky and addictive option for providing state funds. I've always been curious to try Pachinko to see what the appeal and "stigma" of it is, but I'm sure if I asked a native, it would be asking to go to a Times Square video arcade in the early 80's--Not where you want to be seen going if you're a girl or responsible student. 
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Cutiebunny
 Posts: 1772 |
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This is my friend. Granted, he only spends on certain characters, but some of the amounts that he's told me that he's spent to get them just blow my mind. I have been to several pachinko parlors in Japan and I can't stand them. The noise absolutely drives me bonkers. I'm guessing that people just ignore it to play their favorite games..but..wow...I've been to concerts that were not as loud. |
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crosswithyou
 Posts: 2900 Location: California |
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There was a short time (read: two days) where I got hooked on medal games, and it all started with a free coupon for like 500 or 1000 yen's worth of medals. My friend and I got so hooked that we intentionally missed the last train so we could continue playing. We actually hit the jackpot in the game, and the guy sitting near us started clapping. We got like 4 or 5 bucket's worth of medals from that. Unfortunately we did not know that those medals could be exchanged for cash though so we basically just went and lost all our winnings when we came back the next day. (I was told it's possible our winnings could have been worth several hundred dollars.
 ) In all we only spent like maybe 20 bucks though so it's not like we emptied our wallets, but it was a thrilling 8 or so hours.
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Sakagami Tomoyo
 Posts: 948 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
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Gambling is extremely popular just about everywhere, but you can make a case for it being more so in Asia than elsewhere. The article mentions mahjongg; I'm told that in many places family gatherings usually involve playing mahjongg with bets placed and getting very competitive about it. I've also heard stories of people with a sports game on a console, rather than playing each other at it, setting both teams to computer control and betting on the outcome. My dad sometimes comments that people from most Asian countries would bet on two flies crawling up the wall... but then again, Australia's big contribution to the world of gambling is throwing two coins in the air and betting on the outcome, so who are we to talk? |
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#861208
Posts: 423 |
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There's an ad for the Code Geass pachinko on a poster in the train station near where I live, so... thanks, Pachinko, that's one way to get to see my precious darling one more time every day <3
On mobage gacha - and blind-box merchandise, ichiban kuji, concert ticket lotteries, and all the other things like that... these are a chance at a prize that is not cash and can't be easily traded for cash if at all - some blind-box figures and UFO catcher prizes go for a lot of money, but you'd easily spend as much trying to get them, not to mention the effort of trying to sell them, or the cut the secondhand store takes. Mobage cards can't be traded, and while some people say that they'd rather just buy a card from another user than gacha for it, but if you could do that... then it would be gambling, since people would gacha for the card to sell it, rather than to use and love and care for it. And concert/event security is really strict about making sure the person using the ticket is the person who bought it, so much that you can barely even give a ticket to your friend without worrying if they'll be able to get in. None of these things are structured in a way where someone who isn't a fan could profit off of getting the rare prize, at least as far as I've heard. As for the fans who spend tons of money on it, on one hand, there are probably a lot of people who would be classified as gambling addicts, but on the other hand, I feel like a lot of people really don't grasp how much money Japanese people are comfortable spending on media. 6000-9000yen blurays, 3000-4000yen drama CDs (that are often around an hour long), and the fact that way more books are published in Japan than in America and Europe, in pretty much all genres... when a mobage has a special of 9000yen worth of coins, plus a guaranteed five-star ticket, and you can buy that a maximum of four times, the truth is, there are people who buy all four and then still spend more on coins, and most of them are completely sane. The truth is, they're the ones supporting the developers of the game, and paying the artists and writers and songwriters and things like that. If it's not questionable to pledge $1000 to a kickstarter in exchange for an autographed poster, and the knowledge that you're supporting artists you like (so that all the $10 pledgers can enjoy their work too), then why is it wrong to spend 100,000yen (roughly equivalent) on gacha to get a beautiful card of your favorite character and support the artists that make the game, so that all the non-paying players can enjoy it too? |
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svines85
 Posts: 42 |
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Oh, outstanding, a very interesting article, thanks a lot, Justin
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valoon
Posts: 172 |
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Japans laws are sometimes so dumb...
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one3rd
 Posts: 1818 Location: アメリカ |
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I fixed that for you. |
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