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Arik writes:

Is pachinko considered a form of pinball? If so, why is it illegal? I can’t comprehend why a game of this nature is any different than a ticket jackpot machine commonly found in kids arcades and chucky cheese’s throught the U.S.

As far as I know, Arik, there are no U.S. state or federal laws specifically targeted at pachinko and it is not illegal in the U.S. Its regulation in the U.S. (when not played for money) falls under normal fair games and amusements, which most if not all states do have laws and regulations for. It’s certainly pretty easy to acquire a pachinko machine for home use; they are carried by many amusement machine companies, as well as home slot online casino suppliers. Most machines I’ve seen run in the US$100-300 range.

For those of you who do not know, pachinko is a Japanese game. It consists of a standing machine with a spring-loaded hand control. The player loads a large amount (usually in the hundreds) of small metal balls (about 1/4 inch wide) into a hopper in the machine. When the hand control is rotated, the balls fire out at a speed determined by how far the hand control is turned. If the player keeps the hand control rotated, the balls continue to fire at regular intervals.

They fire into a lattice of metal pegs, obstacles and goals. The aim of the game is to fire the balls into goals, which are usually small wheels or slots in the board. Based on the number and frequency of balls which hit these goals, the machine pays out more balls, based on rules which are totally unknown to the player. Usually the machine includes some sort of progressive modes, which encourage the player to play more balls and get the machine “hot” to pay off even more balls. The goal is to leave the machine with more balls than you started with.

In Japan, these balls are then exchangeable for prizes. The prizes usually seem totally out of whack with the amount the game costs — you may pump $20 worth of balls into a machine and get a little weird teddy bear, for instance. However, near every pachinko parlor is a store that “purchases” these specific prizes for cash. It’s that exchange which makes pachinko a gambling game in Japan, and while gambling is illegal there it is generally tolerated in this technically illegal form.

As to why it is not popular in the U.S. is open for debate. My theory is that the game isn’t all that exciting compared to the legal forms of U.S. gambling such as video poker or blackjack, and it isn’t as much of a game of skill as, say, skee-ball, if it were to be played for amusement or fair-type prizes. On the other hand, pachinko is more skill-based than basic three-reel slot machines, and those are wildly popular in the U.S. It’s conceivable that pachinko machines could get regulated and legalized in a place like Vegas as a gambling device, but I don’t see why any casino would go through the trouble — they would require much more maintenance and support than the existing video gambling machines and don’t offer anything unique to the casinos other than perhaps an attraction for Japanese tourists and pachinko enthusiasts.

For further reading, there are some good article on pachinko in Japan out there. Try here and here for starters. You can also search eBay for pachinko auctions.

A couple of interesting sidenotes:

Juzo Itami, a Japanese movie director who was responsible for my favorite foreign film, Tampopo, also directed a movie called A Taxing Woman (Marusa no onna). It revolves around an aggressive tax inspector who is going after a pachinko parlor for under-reporting their revenues.

I’ve heard that some Japanese pachinko parlors post “No Gaijin” signs, or don’t allow Americans. I’m not sure how many of them do this; a couple of my friends have been to Japan and played pachinko with no problems so it may be rare.