THE gaudy pachinko parlours that disfigure many a Japanese high street are an acquired taste. The country’s 12,000 parlours keep players sealed off from the outside world behind a thick wall of noise, smoke and gambler’s tension. The pinball-with-prizes machines, with their flashing lights and ceaseless din, induce a trance-like state, prompting Donald Ritchie, an American writer on Japan, to describe pachinko as “cut-price Zen”.Pachinko has been in decline for years, yet its revenues last year were put at 19 trillion yen ($175 billion). To give some idea, that was almost twice the Japanese motor industry’s export revenues. About one in seven Japanese adults play it regularly. For decades it has thrived in a legal grey zone, just about dodging an official ban on gambling. Now it faces two challenges: a government plan to allow the building of big, legal casinos; and finding a way to reinvent itself for the video-game generation.The second problem is the toughest. To young Japanese, pachinko is a bit naff, something your fusty old uncle wastes his time with. The number of regular players has halved since...
from The Economist: Business http://ift.tt/1rvTq3j
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