JRA Pay-easy Service for PAT Accounts

What the Pay-easy service is

Pay-easy is a charge service for the betting ticket balance of your PAT or A-PAT account. The money is charged directly from a registered financial institution, and that institution can be different from the one you registered for your PAT or A-PAT registration number¹. In practice, that means you are not locked into topping up from the same bank you signed up with.

You reach it from inside your account rather than from a separate app. On IPAT, you go to the withdrawal menu and choose Pay-easy deposit. On A-PAT, it sits in the top menu¹. Once you are there, the deposit is made at an ATM rather than online, which is why you need a physical cash card.

The service runs from service start until 30 minutes before the final race. On holidays and special days with local racing and JBC races, the window follows the same pattern¹. If you are topping up on a normal race day, you have most of the afternoon to do it, but the last half hour before the final race is closed.

Which accounts work: IPAT and A-PAT

Pay-easy applies to IPAT and A-PAT accounts¹. The two are not the same product, and the difference matters for how you fund them.

IPAT is the standard internet voting service. Soku-PAT members and A-PAT members can use it on designated days, while Soku-PAT members use it on other designated days². A-PAT is a membership built around a dedicated horse racing bank account. That account is a horse racing dedicated account, so it cannot be registered for internet banking³. It also has to be locked, which is why A-PAT is in principle usable only on JRA race days⁴.

For Pay-easy specifically, A-PAT members can deposit during A-PAT member sales hours on JRA race days and certain public holidays, but not on Immediate-PAT-only sales days⁴. If you hold both, check which sales day you are in before you head to the ATM.

One practical trap: the cash card for your A-PAT designated account cannot be used for Pay-easy ATM payments³. You need the card of the bank you are depositing from, not the card tied to the A-PAT account itself.

How to register and link a bank account

Registration for PAT is done once, and the bank account you link is the one your payouts go to. For A-PAT, purchase money is paid and refunds are transferred via the designated bank account on the bank business day immediately after the kaisen period⁵. That is the account the membership is built around.

At the ATM, you need four things: the receiving financial institution code, your customer number, your confirmation number, and a cash card of the depositing bank. JRA's receiving institution code is 57019¹. The customer number and confirmation number come from your PAT setup.

If you use Japan Post Bank, you can join even without Yucho Direct registration. You need the branch number, or symbol, of your general account and your cash card PIN to register⁶. That makes Japan Post Bank one of the easier options if you have not set up online banking.

For the smartphone side, you log in with your subscriber number, your P-ARS number and a 4-digit PIN you chose yourself³. Those same credentials are what you use to reach the Pay-easy deposit screen before you go to the ATM.

If you are weighing this against other ways to fund a betting account, our guide to funding official betting accounts covers designated banks and net bank services across the region.

What you can bet on with PAT

Once your balance is topped up, PAT covers the full JRA menu. The A-PAT smartphone site lists³:

• Pay-easy deposit
• Normal betting
• Odds betting
• WIN5 betting
• An inquiry menu
• An information menu
• PIN change and cancellation
• Overseas horse racing betting
• NAR local horse racing betting

A-PAT itself covers all races at all racecourses where central JRA racing is held, plus designated overseas races⁷.

Payout rates vary by bet type. Under JRA's betting method regulations, rates run at 80.00%, 77.50%, 75.00%, 72.50% and 70.00% depending on the bet type⁸. Trio bets, for example, sit at 70.00% for races from June 7, 2026⁹. The payout formula is (W+D/P) x R, with an additional A/P term for WIN5 only, where W is total sales of winning tickets for the race, D is total sales of winning tickets for races other than a refunded race, P is the number of winning horses, R is the rate for the betting method, and A is the WIN5 carryover⁸.

There are also occasional boosts. JRA Super Premium pays amounts on top of the normal payout set at an 80% payout rate across all listed bet types, and JRA Ultra Premium adds a further 5% on top of the 80% payout-rate amount for Tokyo 11R¹⁰. JRA Plus 10 pays back JPY 110, adding JPY 10, when the normal payout would be under JPY 100 per JPY 100 on win and place bets under the refund rule¹¹.

Age rules for betting accounts

You must be 20 years old to bet with JRA¹². Anyone over 20 can purchase betting tickets, and the old restriction that barred students over 20 no longer applies¹². For betting tickets specifically, under-20s may not buy or cash them⁸.

A-PAT's membership agreement bars anyone under 20 from joining⁵. It also puts a duty of care on members: they must take special care that persons under 20 do not use their member number, PIN, P-ARS number and INET-ID to apply for internet or telephone voting⁵. JRA's own guidance repeats this, asking that under-20s not place betting applications¹³.

For a day at the track, anyone under 15 can enter a racecourse free of charge¹². That is entry, not betting. Racing programs are also free of charge and include information on all runners for that day, available at the information desk¹².

Other cashless options: UMACA and betting machines

Pay-easy is not the only way to bet without cash. UMACA is a dedicated IC card for buying betting tickets, usable at terminals or by smartphone cashlessly. You can register the same day with ID only, and there is no registration or annual fee¹⁴.

UMACA terminals cover JRA horse racing tickets, WIN5 and overseas horse racing¹⁵. Betting slips are also available on UMACA transaction machines⁶. If you prefer to fill in a mark card, the JRA mark card uses the same filling method as the Kanazawa mark card¹⁶.

At JRA WINS and Excel venues, you can buy betting tickets at the automatic machines at the venue¹⁷. At racecourses, payoffs are made at automated machines inside the venue¹⁸. JRA operates 10 racecourses and 38 off-course betting facilities called WINS¹⁹, and there are 10 JRA racecourses plus off-track betting facilities around the country²⁰.

Some local racing venues also sell and pay out JRA betting tickets. J-PLACE facilities use the Local Horse Racing Joint Totalisator System to sell and pay out JRA betting tickets²⁰. If you are near one of those, you can buy and collect without going to a JRA track.

If you are comparing this with how other countries handle betting account funding, our pages on HKJC's fund transfer facility and KEIRIN net bank service registration cover the equivalents elsewhere.