Smart Pachinko introduced in Japan

From April 2023, pachinko halls in Japan began introducing sealed-ball machines known as smart pachinko, or "sumapachi," which carry the "e" type prefix¹. The machines followed smart pachislot, or "sumasuro," which arrived in November 2022 with medals replaced by electronic data².

Pachinko is classified in Japan as a "fuzoku" (amusement) business under the Amusement Business Act, first promulgated on July 10, 1948 under the title Control Law for Businesses Affecting Public Morals¹. Under Article 2, Paragraph 1, Item 4, it is defined as a business that "installs equipment and has customers play games that may stimulate their gambling spirit"¹. Prizes may be provided, but cash and securities may not, and halls may not buy back prizes from customers¹. The maximum prize value is 9,600 yen, or 10,368 yen including consumption tax, and the ball price is capped at 4.4 yen per ball including tax as of October 2019¹. Entry by anyone clearly under 18 is prohibited, and halls must post that at the entrance¹.

The new machines arrived during a contraction. According to the National Police Agency, the number of amusement venues operating pachinko fell from 8,458 in 2021 to 7,665 in 2022, a 9.3 percent decline in one year and the largest since 2001². Pachinko hall bankruptcies reached 39 in 2022, the most in a decade, and had reached 25 by September 2023, already above the 22 recorded in 2019 before the pandemic². Of the 25 bankruptcies in January to September 2023, 23, or 92.0 percent, were attributed to poor sales, and 14, or 56.0 percent, were coronavirus-related². By legal form, 20 were bankruptcies, five were suspensions of bank transactions, and none used civil rehabilitation or corporate reorganization².

Machine costs were a factor. A manager at a major Tokyo-area hall said slot customer numbers, utilization, sales and profit had all improved, while adding that pachinko had not yet seen a comparable shift to smart pachinko².

What it means for players

Pachinko remains legal in Japan as an amusement business, not as gambling, and the payout route still runs through prizes exchanged at a separate buyer rather than cash paid over the counter¹. The prize ceiling of 9,600 yen, or 10,368 yen with tax, and the 4.4 yen per ball price cap are unchanged by the new machines¹. Entry remains barred to anyone clearly under 18¹. The reported return rate to customers is around 85 percent, so halls keep roughly 15 percent of money played¹. The new machines change how balls are handled inside the cabinet, not the legal status of the game. Whether smart pachinko machines become as widely installed as smart pachislot has not been reported; Tokyo Shoko Research reported in October 2023 that halls saw no clear shift of pachinko players to the new machines².

What happens next

No further dated steps for smart pachinko are given in the reporting. Tokyo Shoko Research said in October 2023 that the shakeout of pachinko halls had only just begun, with rising electricity and labor costs, smart-related construction work and the redesign of banknotes adding further burdens, and that some machine makers were tightening credit checks on halls with payment delays².

For background on how pachinko sits between amusement and gambling, see Pachinko: Is It Gambling? and Can I Gamble in Japan?. For the wider regional picture, see Gambling Laws in Asia: What Is Legal in 12 Jurisdictions and Recent and Pending Gambling Law Changes in Asia.