What Is the Game Pachinko?

 

First created as a children's game in 1920s Japan, pachinko is a cross between pinball, arcade game, and slot machine. In pachinko, the goal is to get as many balls as possible into winning pockets, but like any arcade game, there's a twist. The playing field is crowded with hundreds of brass pins that obstruct the balls' path into winning pockets. You can see a pachinko game in action below.

What Are Pachinko Parlors?

Pachinko parlors are essentially arcade-like establishments that are filled with pachinko machines. Some pachinko machines are themed, from popular movies like "Jaws" to hot anime series. Smoking is allowed in most parlors, but according to the BBC, many parlors offer smoke-free areas, and some include translated instructions for tourists visiting Japan.

Gambling is illegal in Japan, but pachinko parlors subvert the ban through a loophole. "Pachinko" author Min Jin Lee told Business Insider that "pachinko parlors use a loophole by having an intermediary between the winning of the balls and then the conversion into cash." In other words, while parlors are not allowed to exchange players' balls directly for money, they can exchange them for tokens or a ticket, which players can then exchange for cash at third-party establishments.

How to Play Pachinko?

Playing pachinko is straightforward. First, the machines are typically sorted by price and their winning probability, according to Japan Travel. Each device can have a different price for the balls within it, such as one yen per ball, four yen per ball, and so forth. Picking the right pachinko machine depends on your familiarity and expertise in the game. Upon selecting the right machine, you insert money to play, then push a button to release a set of small metal balls to play with. To win, you must carefully push the play lever on the machine to launch the balls hard and high enough that they will make their way into one of the winning pockets. The more balls you get into winning pockets, the more prizes you can get.

How Popular Are Pachinko Parlors?

The pachinko game originated in the early 20th century as Corinthian Bagatelle, one of the earliest versions of pinball. A version of the game reached Japan in the 1920s and grew in popularity at the time, until the onset of World War II, when machines had to be used for scrap metal, according to Abroad in Japan. After World War II, the game regained popularity as the desire for leisure entertainment was in high demand. As the love for pachinko grew in the 1940s and 50s, parlors were built around the country and, since then, have become a multi-billion dollar industry in Japan.

The game of pachinko and pachinko parlors remain popular in Japan. There are over 10,000 parlors in the country alone, and the game's market is valued at approximately $200 billion annually, "nearly 30 times the annual gambling revenue of Las Vegas," as reported by Business Insider. Pachinko is so popular that 1 in 12 people in Japan play the game, according to Japan Today.파칭코

What Is the Game Pachinko?

 

First created as a children's game in 1920s Japan, pachinko is a cross between pinball, arcade game, and slot machine. In pachinko, the goal is to get as many balls as possible into winning pockets, but like any arcade game, there's a twist. The playing field is crowded with hundreds of brass pins that obstruct the balls' path into winning pockets. You can see a pachinko game in action below.

What Are Pachinko Parlors?
Pachinko parlors are essentially arcade-like establishments that are filled with pachinko machines. Some pachinko machines are themed, from popular movies like "Jaws" to hot anime series. Smoking is allowed in most parlors, but according to the BBC, many parlors offer smoke-free areas, and some include translated instructions for tourists visiting Japan.
Gambling is illegal in Japan, but pachinko parlors subvert the ban through a loophole. "Pachinko" author Min Jin Lee told Business Insider that "pachinko parlors use a loophole by having an intermediary between the winning of the balls and then the conversion into cash." In other words, while parlors are not allowed to exchange players' balls directly for money, they can exchange them for tokens or a ticket, which players can then exchange for cash at third-party establishments.

How to Play Pachinko?
Playing pachinko is straightforward. First, the machines are typically sorted by price and their winning probability, according to Japan Travel. Each device can have a different price for the balls within it, such as one yen per ball, four yen per ball, and so forth. Picking the right pachinko machine depends on your familiarity and expertise in the game. Upon selecting the right machine, you insert money to play, then push a button to release a set of small metal balls to play with. To win, you must carefully push the play lever on the machine to launch the balls hard and high enough that they will make their way into one of the winning pockets. The more balls you get into winning pockets, the more prizes you can get.

How Popular Are Pachinko Parlors?파칭코
The pachinko game originated in the early 20th century as Corinthian Bagatelle, one of the earliest versions of pinball. A version of the game reached Japan in the 1920s and grew in popularity at the time, until the onset of World War II, when machines had to be used for scrap metal, according to Abroad in Japan. After World War II, the game regained popularity as the desire for leisure entertainment was in high demand. As the love for pachinko grew in the 1940s and 50s, parlors were built around the country and, since then, have become a multi-billion dollar industry in Japan.
The game of pachinko and pachinko parlors remain popular in Japan. There are over 10,000 parlors in the country alone, and the game's market is valued at approximately $200 billion annually, "nearly 30 times the annual gambling revenue of Las Vegas," as reported by Business Insider. Pachinko is so popular that 1 in 12 people in Japan play the game, according to Japan Today.

Sega Sammy splits video games

 

Sega Sammy will split apart its video games and amusement divisions as part of a new company structure.

In a statement released last week, the Japanese firm said it has "been working on structural reform to transform its business structure to adapt to the external environment."

Going forward, the organization will be divided into Sega Group Corporation, which covers its video games operations, and Sammy Corporation, which encompasses its "pachinko, pachislot, arrange-ball, and jankyu machines"

Both will be wholly owned subsidiaries of Sega Sammy, but will operate as separate companies rather than divisions of a single entity. This will take effect in April this year.

In explaining the decision, Sega Sammy said that the new structure would be "more efficient" and "[accelerate] decision-making."

This decision has been taken following a difficult year for certain parts of Sega Sammy Holdings' business. While video games boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic, those gains were erased by the collapse of its amusements and resorts divisions.

In November last year, Sega Sammy called for the voluntary redundancy of as many as 650 full-time employees.

Japan’s Sega Sammy Holdings has reported a profit attributable to owners of the parent of JPY37.03 billion (US$286.4 million) in the 12 months to 31 March 2022, up from a profit of JPY1.27 billion (US$9.9 million) a year earlier thanks to gains in its three core business segments – pachinko, computer gaming and resort operations.

Having seen pachinko parlors across the country reopen following COVID-19 enforced closures throughout much of the 2021 financial year, Sega Sammy’s pachislot and pachinko machine business recorded the largest gains, with sales rising 42.6% year-on-year to JPY75.87 billion (US$586.6 million) and income of JPY10.28 billion (US$79.5 million) reversing a prior year loss of JPY11.22 billion (US$86.7 million). The company said this was achieved by reviewing the product line-up – including the revival of successful past products – and “improving development efficiency”.파칭코사이트인포

In the Amusement Contents Business, where it develops new computer games titles, arcade machines and free-to-play online games, net sales grew 8.3% to JPY235.94 billion (US$1.82 billion) while income increased by 32.0% to JPY36.86 billion (US$285.0 million).

And in the resort segment, comprising non-gaming Phoenix Sea Gaia Resort in Japan plus casino resort Paradise City in Incheon, South Korea – of which Sega Sammy holds a 45% stake – net sales grew 37.1% year-on-year to JPY8.66 billion (US$67.0 million), with the resort’s loss narrowing from JPY8.98 billion (US$69.4 million) to JPY6.74 billion (US$52.1 million). The company noted that drop was up by 48.5% and the number of guests by 56.9% year-on-year, however, “travel demand has been sluggish due to the impact from the spread of COVID-19.”

Gambling Addiction in the Land of Pachinko

 

A Widespread Issue
Family Connection

Gambling is pervasive in Japan. Pachinko and slot machine parlors dot the landscape, and prodigious numbers of publicly operated horse, boat, and bicycle racing venues offer onsite and remote betting. The spread of smartphones, too, has made it possible for people to gamble online anytime and anywhere.

According to a 2017 survey by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare, 3.6% of Japanese adults some 3.2 million people are thought to suffer gambling addiction at some point in their life. This is startlingly high compared to rates in other industrialized nations like France and the Netherlands, where it is 1.2% and 1.9%, respectively.

The survey found that over the previous year, 0.8% of Japanese, some 700,000 people, exhibited behavior consistent with gambling addiction, and that addicts on average spent ¥58,000 a month on their affliction. It also named pachinko and slot machines as the most popular forms of wagering.

In December 2016, the Japanese Diet passed integrated resort promotion legislation, the so-called casino law, focusing much-needed public attention on the long-time problem of gambling addiction. Surprisingly, though, the bill was not accompanied by counter measures intended to address compulsive gambling. Japan’s willingness to expand its already robust gambling industry further without taking steps to combat addiction makes it an outlier among developed nations. And it is exactly this indifference to excessive wagering that has enabled the disorder to spread through society.

I have seen firsthand the effects of gambling on families. My grandfather, father, and husband were all compulsive gamblers, and I was also diagnosed with the disorder. People have repeatedly expressed to me their dismay at my inability to avoid the trap that snared my father and grandfather. While I can sympathize with this view, it illustrates an underlying ignorance of the affliction. The reality is that over wagering very often runs in families, and it is by no means unusual to hear of third-generation addicts, such as myself.

Of course, no child of a gambling addict wants to repeat the mistakes of their parents, but many wind up trudging down the same dark road. In my case, I was shocked at realizing that I too had become a compulsive gambler. It filled me with feelings of guilt and disappointment, and all I could do was ask how I had succumbed so easily to the affliction.

To answer that question, I had to look back at my own life experiences. My mother divorced my father early on due to his gambling habit. She returned to her own parents’ home with me in tow, but this was hardly better as my grandfather also spent hours on end at pachinko parlors. His gambling strained relations among family members and finances, and we had to live hand to mouth. Our situation was so desperate that when I entered junior high school my mother could not even afford to buy me a school uniform and backpack like the other students had.

Still, I would go with my grandfather when he played pachinko and was already a fixture at the parlors he frequented by the time I was in kindergarten. Through these outings I learned early on that gambling was fun. I was not the only person influenced by my grandfather’s gambling habit either. When the family gathered at the New Year or other holidays, we would all play the traditional Japanese card games of hanafuda or mahjong.

Secretly, though, we disdained our grandfather’s wagering. I suspect that each of us felt assured that we would never turn out to be a helpless gambler like he was. I certainly know that I did.파칭코사이트인포

When you grow up surrounded by gambling as I did, it comes to be a normal aspect of life. After I met my husband, who also had a penchant for betting, hardly any time passed before we had given ourselves over completely to playing the odds.

Pachinko revenues

“Pachinko used to be just for men, but I like pachinko. I come alone, and just focus.”

Pachinko revenues are falling as Japan’s population ages.

Gross revenue has shrunk to 19 trillion yen ($185.75 billion) from 31 trillion over the past two decades, and the number of players halved between 2002 and 2012, research by investment bank Morgan Stanley shows.

Part of the problem has been a 15-year economic slump just ending. Spending on all kinds of leisure has dropped by almost a third over the past 20 years, but the number of players per machine has roughly halved since 2000 to stand at just over two in 2012, Morgan Stanley estimates.

Japan’s moves to legalize casino resorts could force pachinko out of the gray zone where it has thrived for decades. It faces no gaming taxes, since it is not treated as gambling, which is illegal, but is viewed instead as an amusement.

Pachinko began as a children’s toy in the 1920s, which gained popularity among adults after World War Two.

Machines spew out winnings in the form of small metal balls. Most players opt to swap winnings for cash, with 87 percent of players at Dynam going this route.

Maruhan and Dynam have fared better than the rest of the industry, which is dominated by family-owned firms. Maruhan’s annual revenue after payouts was about 80 billion yen for the fiscal year that ended in March, up about 16 percent from 2012. For Dynam, revenue was flat over the same period.

But even big operators face difficulties, one expert says.

“Every year, fewer and fewer people are playing pachinko,” said Tohru Okazaki, who has published five books on the industry. “Young people are simply not playing.”

Young people stopped because payouts are smaller and they find it harder to borrow money, said Naomi Suzuki, whose family runs a chain of parlors in the Fukushima prefecture that was hit by the 2011 earthquake and the nuclear crisis that followed.파칭코사이트인포

“Twenty years ago, pachinko parlors were full of young people, but now it’s mostly all middle-aged and old people that come and play,” said Suzuki. “Young people have no money.”

Between the Lines - Pachinko

Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko is a gripping multi-generational saga of a 20th century Korean family. The story opens in a fishing village in Korea shortly after the Japanese annexation, then follows this family to Japan from the years before World War II to the late 1980’s.  I am embarrassed to admit that I knew nothing about this time period: nothing about Korea or the Korean immigrant story in Japan.  Pachinko is both a heartbreaking and tender fictional story, but it is the historical world that opened up to me that made the book even more compelling. I wouldn’t say Pachinko is perfect; the last third which covered the later years felt rushed. And some readers might not like that the book switches perspectives often and sometimes suddenly.  Personally, I did not take issue with that, and I enjoyed the stories of the minor characters as much as the major ones. Overall, I see Pachinko as a story of what it is like to be an immigrant, to be a second-class citizen, to be without a homeland, to be an outsider all while trying to forge a home and a better life for oneself and one’s children oftentimes at great sacrifice.  The book begins “History has failed us, but no matter.”  Indeed it seems as if history doesn’t care about these people, but in the end history does not diminish them, nor strip their lives of the complexity, richness, kindness and the good and bad fortune that all humans experience.  For Lee’s characters that have the fortitude to carry on in the face of great adversity, the mantra really is “no matter.”   There is too much here to summarize, after all the novel spans 8 decades, but the stand out theme for me concerns what it means to be an outsider and to what extent and to what length one will go to fit in. In Pachinko, it isn’t just the Ethnic Koreans that suffer discrimination. There are other ways to fall from grace. Lee shows compassion for and understanding of all her characters. There are those that are shunned for possessing physical deformities, ostracized because a parent commits suicide, ones hiding homosexuality, others hiding their ethnicity, adulterers, addicts, and prostitutes.  All these people struggle to be ”good” and to fit in. Lee is especially skilled in her portrayal of  Sunja and Kyunghee, whose quiet dignity and humanity provide the backdrop for all the stories found in this novel.  At the end of the book,  Sunja reflects on her life “Beyond the day lines there had been moments of shimmering beauty and some glory too, even in this ajumma’s* life. Even if no one knew, it was true.”  In the end Pachinko comes full circle -  history may have failed Sunja and her people but “no matter”  because Sunja knew what her life and the life of her family meant to her and that was enough.     

Additional Notes

The book takes its title from the popular game Pachinko, a part slot machine, part pinball game of chance.  Despite the game’s popularity, Pachinko parlors were looked down upon as dens of gambling and crime.  Ethnic Koreans in Japan,  discriminated against and shut out of traditional occupations, were forced into finding other ways to earn money and Pachinko parlors became one way of finding work and accumulating wealth.  It is estimated that 80% of Pachinko parlors in Japan today are owned by Ethnic Koreans.파친코

Pachinko was a 2017 finalist for the “National Book Award for Fiction” and was named by The New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2017.

Overall

I strongly recommend you put Pachinko on your Summer reading list.  Yes, I know that summer reading lists are meant to be light and fun, an escape from reality and Pachinko is tougher than that. There is pain and heartache and grim life here, but there is also hope, love, courage and perseverance. I am also aware that summer reading lists are often books about women and largely read by women.  To that end, Pachinko fits the bill. There are plenty of male characters in Pachinko, but the book opens and closes with a woman’s story: Sunja’s story, a story of grace, love and sacrifice.  It is a page turner and at time feels like a soap opera (which I say in a non-disparaging way) as well as a well-researched and absorbing piece of historical fiction. 

Mixtures of Hierarchical Topics Pachinko Allocation

 

Another approach to representing the organization of topics is the pachinko allocation model (PAM) (Li & McCallum, 2006). PAM is a family of generative models in which words are generated by a directed acyclic graph (DAG) consisting of distributions over words and distributions over other nodes. A simple example of the PAM framework, four-level PAM, is described in Li and McCallum (2006). There is a single node at the top of the DAG that defines a distribution over nodes in the second level, which we refer to as super topics. Each node in the second level defines a distribution over all nodes in the third level, or sub-topics. Each sub-topic maps to a single distribution over the vocabulary. Only the sub-topics, therefore, actually produce words. The super-topics represent clusters of topics that frequently cooccur. In this paper, we develop a different member of the PAM family and apply it to the task of hierarchical topic modeling. This model, hierarchical PAM (hPAM), includes multinomial over the vocabulary at each internal node in the DAG. This model addresses the problems outlined above: we no longer have to commit to a single hierarchy, so getting the tree structure exactly right is not as important as in hLDA. Furthermore, “methodological” topics such as one referring to “points” and “players” can be shared between segments of the corpus. Computer Science provides a good example of the benefits of the hPAM model. Consider three subfields of Computer Science: Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, and Computer Vision. All three can be considered part of Artificial Intelligence. Vision and NLP both use ML extensively, but all three subfields also appear independently. In order to represent ML as a single topic in a tree-structured model, NLP and Vision must both be children of ML; otherwise words about Machine Learning must be spread between an NLP topic, a Vision topic, and an ML-only topic. In contrast, hPAM allows higher-level topics to share lower-level topics. For this work we use a fixed number of topics, although it is possible to use nonparametric priors over the number of topics. We evaluate hPAM, hLDA and LDA based on the criteria mentioned earlier. We measure the ability of a topic model to predict unseen documents based on the empirical likelihood of held-out data given simulations drawn from the generative process of each model. We measure the ability of a model to describe the hierarchical structure of a corpus by calculating the mutual information between topics and human-generated categories such as journals. We find a 1.1% increase in empirical log likelihood for hPAM over hLDA and a five-fold increase in super-topic/journal mutual information.

2.2. hLDA

The hLDA model, which is described in Blei et al. (2004), represents the distribution of topics within documents by organizing the topics into a tree. Each document is generated by the topics along a single path of this tree. When learning the model from data, the sampler alternates between choosing a new path through the tree for each document and assigning each word in each document to a topic along the chosen path. In hLDA, the quality of the distribution of topic mixtures depends on the quality of the topic tree. The structure of the tree is learned along with the topics themselves using a nested Chinese restaurant process (NCRP). The NCRP prior requires two parameters: the number of levels in the tree and a parameter γ. At each node, a document sampling a path chooses either one of the existing children of that node, with probability proportional to the number of other documents assigned to that child, or to a new child node, with probability proportional to γ. The value of γ can therefore be thought of as the number of “imaginary” documents in an as-yet-un-sampled path.파칭코사이트인포

2.3. PAM

Pachinko allocation models documents as a mixture of distributions over a single set of topics, using a directed acyclic graph to represent topic cooccurrences. Each node in the graph is a Dirichlet distribution. At the top level there is a single node. Besides the bottom level, each node represents a distribution over nodes in the next lower level. The distributions at the bottom level represent distributions over words in the vocabulary. In the simplest version, there is a single layer of Dirichlet distributions between the root node and the word distributions at the bottom level. These nodes can be thought of as “templates” common cooccurrence patterns among topics. PAM does not represent word distributions as parents of other distributions, but it does exhibit several hierarchy-related phenomena. Specifically, trained PAM models often include what appears to be a “background” topic: a single topic with high probability in all super-topic nodes. Earlier work with four-level PAM suggests that it reaches its optimal performance at numbers of topics much larger than previously published topic models (Li & McCallum, 2006)