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History of Pachinko

The adjectives used to describe pachinko can be grouped in pairs with distinct polarity of meaning: fun and boring, relaxing and frustrating, profitable and bank-breaking, fashionable and subversive, bright (as in neon) and shady (as in characters and business practices), fascinating and just plain stupid. The ubiquitous presence of pachinko is overbearing to the point of rendering it invisible to the masses passing by the parlors daily. The game seems to be so meaningless, like one of the crazier fads. Regardless, the varying opinions of the game fail to deter some thirty million people a year from stepping inside the neon monster and giving it a go. Pachinko is so popular, in fact, that the average amount of money spent annually by players across Japan exceeds the total spent by the Japanese government on national defense.

The game's attraction varies from player to player. Some play for the relaxation, some for the money, and some just for the fun of it. A fundamental understanding of the game and how it is played will help start potential players on their way.

Pachinko, in a nutshell, involves shooting steel balls up to the top of a board with nails pounded into it. If the balls bounce off the nails in just the right manner, they land in scoring slots and award the player with more balls and a chance to continue. It is so easy even a child can play. The balls awarded the players can later be exchanged for prizes or money, so the game carries not only the potential for entertainment but also for economic benefit.

Pachinko, when played to win, is a test of concentration and nerves, requiring a sure eye and a steady hand. In former days it was for pure amusement, but with the present system it has become foremost a form of gambling.

Furthermore, it is a game meant to be played alone, one person against the machine. Even though popular pachinko parlors are nearly always filled with customers, everyone there is alone in a crowd. It is this aspect of the game that distinguishes pachinko from many other forms of amusement.

The Evolution of the Came

Oddly enough, this most Japanese of games was adapted from a game that was developed and played in America, the Corinthian Game. This was a children's toy that was simply a board with a few holes in it. A small plastic or steel ball was placed in a slot on the right-hand side and then shot up to the top of the board with a wooden dowel. The ball rolled down the inclined face of the board and landed either in a scoring slot or bounced all the way down to the bottom of the board and was considered "out." The scoring slots on the board were protected by nails which were hammered into the board face in circular patterns reminiscent of Corinthian architecture, hence the game's name. The scoring slots were assigned specific point values according to the relative difficulty of getting a ball into that slot. The object of the game, which could be played alone or with others, was to get the most points with the fewest number of balls.

The korinto gēmu, as it was called in Japan, was imported from Chicago by an Osaka trading company shortly before the beginning of the Showa Era, probably around 1924. The game is said to have first been developed in Detroit, but its exact origin is not clear. Adults as well as children soon took to playing the game, which was easy and could be enjoyed by anyone at any time.

Shortly afterward, the korinto gēmu came to be applied to more practical ends. Candy-store owners began keeping them in their shops to attract and entertain their young clientele. Children could come in and play for a sen or two. (The sen, one-hundredth of a yen, has been out of use for several decades, but the term is still used to describe fractions of yen amounts.) If the children attained a sufficiently high score, they won sweets, fruit, or other prizes. This proved so popular among the kiddies that by the mid 1920s, nearly every candy store had a korinto gēmu. The game was commonly called pachi-pachi, in imitation of the sound of the ball as it rolled down the board and hit the nails.

As the game's popularity spread, adults wanted to get in on the action. A few enterprising folks took advantage of this by setting up roten (open-air stalls), or yatai (moving stalls that were set up at night). Inside a roten would be a number of korinto gēmu boards that adults, like the children at the candy stores, could play for a few sen. The prizes, however, mostly tobacco and detergent, were oriented more toward adults.

This predecessor of pachinko grew so quickly in scope and scale as to almost kill itself off. The problem was that the korinto gēmu had to be laid horizontally, which took up an undue amount of space, especially in the narrow, tentlike roten. Then, as now, space was a real commodity, and only so many boards could be squeezed into one candy store or roten. With the ever-increasing number of people wanting to compete for prizes, demand started to overwhelm supply. This precipitated the first major innovation in the korinto gēmu. The board was set upright to help conserve valuable space. This put it on the road to becoming modern-day pachinko, and assured that the korinto gēmu in Japan would evolve quite differently from its parent game which underwent a alternate development in the United States.

In America, with no such lack of room, the Corinthian Game grew larger and larger, the nails gave way to bumpers, targets, and magnets. The steel ball gradually increased in size, and flashing lights and ringing bells were incorporated to make the game more vibrant and exciting. The little wooden dowel was replaced by a spring-loaded "popper" and some flippers were added above the "out" hole to give the player more control. For those who have not guessed as much yet, the Corinthian Game became the pinball machine.

In Japan there was just not enough space for the relatively compact korinto gēmu to take on the proportions of a pinball machine and thus the Japanese version took a much more space-economical path. Often, for lack of a better translation, pachinko is referred to as "Japanese pinball," although the differences between the games are vast.

It is a bit unclear where the first upright korinto gēmu appeared. It would seem that the actual innovation took place around 1926 in the Kanazawa area of Ishikawa Prefecture, where in the early days, two thirds of the pachinko-machine makers (eight of twelve establishments) were located. (Today, Gunma Prefecture has about fifty percent of the pachinko-machine market. The other half is held by Aichi Prefecture, where Nagoya is located.) The upright version of the game had a spring-loaded handle to make shooting easier, and a glass cover to contain the balls. This new form became prevalent in the Osaka area before the 1930s, where it came to be known as gachan or gachanko, here again the name was in imitation of the sound of the shooter hitting the ball. This primitive pachinko's popularity also skyrocketed. The number of makers increased and new gimmicks were constantly added to the machine. This in turn accelerated growth and incited the first "pachinko boom." Eventually the roten and candy shops could no longer keep pace with demand, even with the space-conserving vertical machines. In 1930, the Aichi prefectural headquarters granted the first formal license to a Nagoya businessman to operate a hall full of gachanko machines. All this took place within five years of the Japanese discovery of the Corinthian Game.

During the early 1930s these pachinko-like games continued to grow in popularity. There were a number of innovations, but the major one was the dispensing of new prize medals. These dropped out of the bottom of the machine when a ball fell into a scoring slot, and made it much easier to keep score. The prize medals were actually replaced by prize balls in the mid 30s, but did not come into widespread use until after World War II. It is also believed that this is when pachi-pachi, gachan and gachanko came together in everyday Japanese to form the game's present-day name, pachinko. Some accounts attribute the first use of the word "pachinko" to the Ishikawa Prefecture machine makers of the late 20s. Pachi-pachi is a Japanese word used to express the sound of something dry or crackling, like a fire. "Pachinko" also has an alternate usage, referring to a slingshot or the ball shot from one.

The early 1930s was an unprecedented growth period for pachinko, but the latter part of the decade proved not to be so kind to the game. In 1937, the production of pachinko machines was called to an abrupt halt as a result of Japan's military involvement in China. The metal used to make the nails and balls for pachinko was needed for guns and bullets, and manpower was needed too. In 1938 all pachinko parlors were ordered closed as pachinko factories retooled for munitions. Some of these parlors, especially those in the Nagoya area, were lucky enough to receive an indemnity from the government upon ceasing operations. Here and there a few places managed to illegally continue their pachinko business, but for eight years, until the end of World War II, mere was no legitimate pachinko in Japan. It was during this dormancy that the game's earliest forms, such as gachan, disappeared, never to return again. The humble korinto gēmu managed to survive as a novelty product and can still be purchased today in some department stores.

Pachinko's revival following the war was almost as rapid as its original growth. In 1946, the Nagoya factories again began manufacturing pachinko machines and pachinko parlors sprang up across the country. This revitalization was mainly a result of the prize system on which pachinko had originally been founded.

Japan right after the war was, needless to say, a wreck. Daily necessities were scarce or unavailable. The hows and whys are extremely vague, but many pachinko parlors were nevertheless able to get relatively stable supplies of essentials such as soap, vegetables, and shoes, and even luxuries like cigarettes. Understandably, the poverty-stricken Japanese flocked to the pachinko parlors to try and get their hands on these prizes, and many were successful in obtaining hard-to-get commodities for very little money.

Accompanying the changes in the prizes were further alterations in the design of the pachinko machine. A specialty pachinko manufacturer in Nagoya decided that a speeded-up version of the game would be more exciting. It accomplished this by incorporating an idea that had almost come into vogue prior to the war. It constructed the game so that when a ball fell into a scoring slot it caused the machine to dispense prize balls. These balls could then be used to continue play, so that the player could hopefully compound his investment and win yet more balls. This led another Nagoya manufacturing facility, operated by Shoichi Masamura, to further change the machines by pounding in more nails and adding spinners. These prevented the balls from falling straight to the bottom of the machine if they missed a scoring slot. Rather, they ricocheted around a bit and perhaps found a scoring slot further down on the board. This enhanced the game so much that this classic nail pattern, known as the "Masamura Gauge," is still in use today.

Masamura was also partly responsible for developing the "all" concept, where a ball entering any scoring slot put out a specific number of prize balls. The first such machine was called the "all ten" and had a total of eleven scoring slots. Each slot put out ten balls at a time. By 1948 Masamura was operating his own parlor full of these machines. By 1951, he had fully integrated the Masamura Gauge, and his ideas had become standards for the industry.

Even after achieving this success, Masamura was not willing to stop. He continued developing new machines and by the early 1950s had created what was to be the direct forerunner of the modern pachinko machine. It was an eight-hole machine using his newly developed nail pattern. This machine became known as the "all fifteen" because a ball landing in any hole caused fifteen more balls to roll out. The game was more difficult, but also more challenging and interesting for the players. Another pachinko manufacturer took the "all fifteen" a step farther between 1951 and 1953 (sources vary) and developed the "all twenty." Unfortunately, the "all twenty" attracted too much attention from the authorities and was outlawed in 1963.

Around Masamura's time, a pachinko machine could be manufactured for about ¥2,000 and sold for ¥6,000. Later, machines became more elaborate and costs escalated. Around 1953, machines sold for as much as ¥7,500, truly a seller's market. At this time there were almost six hundred machine makers in the Nagoya area alone, capable of churning out 150,000 machines monthly. The total number of pachinko parlors in Japan was 70,000, incorporating between 900,000 and 1.5 million machines. The figures indicate there were fewer machines per parlor, only ten or twenty each. The large number of buyers meant there was plenty of room for pachinko-machine makers. Eventually the market settled down and the number of makers steadily decreased, so that today there are four or five major manufacturers and maybe one or two dozen, much smaller, fringe manufacturers. The undoing of the smaller makers can be attributed to a lot of factors, one of which is the general Japanese business trend of larger conglomerates absorbing smaller companies. Within the industry, the popularity of chuko-dai, or secondhand machines, caused a serious drop in demand for new machines. This probably hurt the little manufacturers with annual productions of only a thousand machines or so.

Parlors were numerous mainly because of low operating costs. After the initial outlay to buy the machines, the only expenses were for prizes and the wages of those working in the parlor, mainly those people behind the machines refilling the ball supply trays. (Many oldtimers say it was not uncommon, well before Japan became known as the "kingdom of service," for players to reload their own machine with the balls they had won.) However, the second downturn in pachinko's history was just around the corner.

In 1953, a variation of the regular pachinko machine, called the renpatsu-shiki machine was developed. Renpatsu, which means "successive shots," was a machine (shiki can be roughly translated as "type") that could shoot upward of 160 to 180 balls per minute, depending on the skill of the player. Besides raising interest in the game, the machine also was attributed with raising the crime rate. People were so eager to try out this new machine, they would literally lie, cheat, and steal for the money to play. And like the "all twenty," it drew excessive attention to the gambling aspect of the game. By the end of the year, the Metropolitan Police Department (which is still responsible for controlling the pachinko industry) outlawed the renpatsu-shiki "all fifteen." Enforcement of the law was not effective until the following year, but then the effect of the enforcement was dramatic. From a high of 70,000 parlors in 1953, the number plummeted in just one year to 21,000. This decline continued for two more years until there were only 8,000 parlors (with barely half a million machines) left in 1956. This was to be pachinko's only recessionary period in the postwar years.

As the smaller parlors closed, those that remained expanded to pick up the slack. In 1958, the first automated rental ball dispenser was invented. It soon came into widespread use. This and other improvements in and around the pachinko parlors led to a period of slow but steady growth, marked by the continued development of new machines to hold the customers' interest. The development of the special scoring slots known as "tulips" took place in the late 1950s. These were incorporated into different patterns starting in the early 1960s and helped revive interest in the game. However, it would be more than two decades before integral changes in the pachinko machine itself led to the next, and biggest, pachinko boom.

The Boom in the Eighties

Pachinko is a constantly changing game. From the beginning, machine manufacturers have always tried to develop new and exciting variations to attract more players to the parlors. Some of the more unusual machines developed over the years include tere-pachi, (with a television screen in the middle so customers don't have to miss their favorite program or that night's baseball game), or a cross between mahjongg and pachinko called jan-kyū, where a winning ball puts out a mahjongg tile and the customer tries to collect enough tiles to make a winning hand. Tere-pachi has long since gone the way of the dinosaurs, but some parlors now install televisions throughout the building. Jan-kyū can still be found, with a digital display, here and there in out-of-the-way parlors or at larger parlors catering to an older, tradition-oriented clientele.

Before we can begin discussing the types of machines that revolutionized pachinko, we have to take a closer look at the machine that set the standard over the years, the hikōki. The hikōki was developed at around the same time as deji-pachi (described later), but because deji-pachi was slow in gaining acceptance, the hikōki machine became more widely played and dominated the game offerings of most parlors soon after its development. Up until the advent of the hikōki, the center of the machine was left unused except for either decorative designs or a combination of hard-to-enter tulips. In 1971, one maker designed a machine with a central scoring slot that opened five tulips when a ball fell inside. However, by 1981 the central area was furnished with a larger-than-normal scoring slot that could only be entered by a ball landing on a hane, or "wing," which was located on each side of this new central scoring area. The wings were opened when a ball entered one of the lower three scoring slots. Almost immediately after swinging down, the wings closed back up again, but in that short interval, it was possible for one or more balls to alight and fall inside the central scoring slot before the wings folded again. This movement was entirely new and lent a new element of luck to the game, which up until that time had been based more on skill.

Even after the wing development the machine center was still used for creative expression. The most common design was an airplane, which perfectly incorporated the wing concept, hence the terminology "airplane type." Hikōki is Japanese for "airplane." The design on the first machine of this type was that of an actual plane called the Zero Tiger. "Hane type" is also used to describe this machine, but we will henceforth refer to it as a "flipper type," mainly because in the ever-changing world of pachinko, the word "flipper" best sums up the various designs encountered. These days, an airplane design in the central scoring area, or "generator," is rare and many of the wings have come to resemble flower petals, baskets, brooms, and even drawers.

As mentioned above, the flipper-type machine has been considered the standard and most prevalent pachinko machine over the years, due not only to a lack of real competition, but also to the fact that it uses the nail design pioneered by Masamura. Three other types of pachinko, however, one developed at about the same time as the hikōki machine, the others shortly thereafter, are believed to have been directly responsible for reviving the public's interest in pachinko during the last five years. (By the way, nearly all the strategy and nail-reading techniques covered in this book can be applied to these hybrid pachinko, with the exception of pachi-slo, which does not have any nails.) Taking a somewhat purist approach, we will not examine the particular strategies of each machine in extreme detail, but instead just limit ourselves to a general outline of each machine type and how it is distinguished from the more traditional flipper-type machine.

Deji-pachi

Spring is the most popular season for new pachinko machines to be introduced and the spring of 1980 was no exception, when a machine that was to literally revolutionize the pachinko industry made its debut. This machine incorporated a new type of ball-gathering mechanism in the center, and while it did not catch on at first, it slowly began to overtake the popularity of the hikōki machine, which was just beginning to dominate the industry. The new machine also did away with the flippers and substituted a set of three numbered drums or later, three LEDs, which were activated by a ball entering a particular slot. The drums rolled or the LEDs flashed and eventually came to a stop. If a certain combination of numbers came up, an extra large chute near the bottom of the machine opened. As balls streamed into this chute, a plethora of prize balls poured out of the machine. These balls could later be redeemed for prizes. This machine came to be known as the fiibā machine, the Japanese rendering of "fever," which is what is supposedly incurred by the player during the rush of prize balls. Some people also refer to this game as "seven-seven-seven" or "all seven" after the most common and sought-after winning combination.

Advances in technology eventually allowed most manufacturers to use flashing LEDs in place of spinning drums so that this machine type came to be known as deji-pachi, the Japanese contraction of "digital pachinko." Even though some of these machines still use the numbered drums that resemble a slot machine they are still commonly referred to as deji-pachi machines. Another factor contributing to the tenacity of this questionable terminology is the computer that controls the spinning of the drums. It is basically the same as the one for the digital-display machines.

From its obscure start in 1980, deji-pachi has come to rival the traditional flipper-type machine in popularity. The biggest factor in deji-pachi's wide appeal is its speed. On the flipper-type machine, it usually takes two or three hours of consistent scoring (getting balls into the generator via the flippers) to make a machine dispense its set limit of balls, even if the person playing the machine is very good. It is not uncommon, however, for a deji-pachi machine to go ucki-dome (that is, dispense its predetermined ball limit) in fifteen or twenty minutes. Because of this speed element, and the fact that just a few well-placed, well-aimed, well-shot balls can result in uchi-dome, deji-pachi tends to be a very unforgiving machine for the beginning player. A deji-pachi machine can quickly put out three or four thousand balls, but it can suck up ¥8,000 or ¥10,000 just as quickly. Thus, players with gambling spirit tend to congregate in the deji-pachi shima, or "island," of the parlor. It is to this gambling aspect of deji-pachi that most people attribute the game's success, reasoning that Japanese are inherent gamblers and deji-pachi caters to their desires. Also, some parlors have a museigen policy on deji-pachi machines. Museigen means "unlimited" and refers to deji-pachi machines that have no limit on the number of balls they can put out. Not surprisingly, this too has proved quite popular among the gamblers and pachi-pro (pachinko professionals, those who play pachinko for a living). Whatever the reason, deji-pachi machines can be found in almost any pachinko parlor, and, most recently, more often than not outnumber the flipper-type machines.

Ippatsu-dai

Another machine, ippatsu-dai, was developed in the mid 1980s. It is closer to deji-pachi than to flipper-type machines, even though its generator (central scoring area) does not usually contain the numbered dials typical of deji-pachi. The similarity to deji-pachi is that one well-aimed ball entering a specific scoring slot at a specific time invariably results in uchi-dome. (The word ippatsu means literally "one shot," and in certain contexts has sexual connotations. Its usage in pachinko refers to that one shot, which makes the difference between winning and losing on an ippatsu-dai.) And again, because just one ball is all it takes to "break" the machine, getting that ball where you want it is quite difficult. But many pachinko pros actually favor deji-pachi and ippatsu-dai for this reason. If they accurately analyze the nails (which is what they try to do continuously), they can make good money in a short time with little effort and little strain.

Pachislo

The third type of pachinko that appeared in the last decade is in essence not even pachinko. Pachislo is an abbreviation for "pachinko slot," but it is merely a somewhat elaborate slot machine and nothing more. These machines use tokens or "medals" instead of balls and operate like normal slot machines except that the dials are started with the push of a button. The player also has a button under each dial to stop that dial at will. There are options for diagonal and straight wins, according to the number of medals "bet." Pachislo specialty parlors have sprung up everywhere, along with almost as much literature on the genre as on regular pachinko. Presumably by learning the patterns and sequences on the dials of specific machines, one can learn to stop the dials at the right time and hit the winning combinations. There are also various "bonus chance" schemes the player can take advantage of to increase the number of medals a machine puts out.

In one way or another all three of these machines had a profound effect in aiding the pachinko boom. Ippatsu-dai has been unable to rival the popularity of deji-pachi, but pachi-slo has managed to capture sixteen percent of the machine market.

There is yet another type of pachinko that did not really play a part in the recent boom but still can be found here and there. It is called are-pachi and combines elements of deji-pachi, ippatsu-dai, pachi-slo, and bingo. The term are-pachi came from "arrange ball," a primitive hybrid of the old korinto getnu and pachinko, but it now stands for "arrange pachinko." True "arrange ball," sometimes called "smart ball," is still around in a few parlors, but like jan-kyū, one really has to look high and low to find it. Are-pachi has never really been popular but is sustained by a cultlike following of college students in the major cities. A number of parlor owners justify keeping a smattering of are-pachi machines on hand, but even so, are-pachi seldom accounts for more than ten percent of a parlor's machines.

A definite boom followed the introduction of deji-pachi, ippatsu-dai, and pachi-slo, the proof of which is in the numbers. We pointed out before that one quarter of the Japanese population plays pachinko. Where do all these people play? Well, in 1981 at the onset of the pachinko boom, there were 9,807 parlors throughout Japan. They housed a total of almost 1.9 million machines. By 1982, the number of machines passed the 2-million mark and in 1988 hit 3.6 million. Most authorities agree the number is approaching four million by now. The number of parlors grew steadily as well, though it never neared its peak of 70,000 in the early 1950s. By 1986 there were well over 10,000 parlors in Japan, and after averaging better than ten percent growth over four years, the number of parlors reached the 16,000 mark by the end of the decade.

The new machine types were not die only factor aiding this growth. There have been a lot of other changes in the pachinko business over the years, particularly the parlor owners' efforts to clean up their image. One of the simplest ways they accomplished this was to change the name of the place where pachinko was played. Parlors most often were referred to as "pachinko halls." But, much like the American image of a "pool hall," this term had a tendency to bring to mind a lot of smoke, dust, darkness, and undesirables. In Japanese the word "parlor" may not exactly suggest a place where elderly ladies gather to play bridge and drink tea, but it is vaguely brighter and more positive. For whatever reason though, the term "parlor" caught on. Presently, places where pachinko is played are called halls and parlors with about the same frequency. The same can be said for the frequency of each term as used by players and pachinko information sources, neither of which prefers one term over the other. For the most part though, in the last five years (since the peak of die pachinko boom) nearly all newly built or established places where pachinko is played have preferred to call themselves parlors.

Hardest to clean up, however, has been pachinko's gambling image. Gambling in Japan has always had the connotation of being a pastime of middle-aged men, often gangster types with gold chains, "punch perms" (tightly permed short hair), and maybe a scar or two. Parlors started to combat this image with brightness, namely in the form of neon lights. Older pachinko parlors, which were built before 1980 and are likely to still be called halls, rarely have the prerequisite neon lights that characterize today's parlor. Nowadays, not only do new parlors have multitudinous banks of neon lights in multitudinous colors, they also have spacious reception areas complete with welcomers, welcome mats, vending machines, and umbrella stands. The toilets, sometimes with elaborate brass and marble fixtures, are kept immaculately clean, and the entire parlor is well illuminated from one corner to the other. The attendants are dressed in color-coordinated uniforms and the floor is swept thoroughly and regularly during business hours. This type of parlor, which began appearing in the late 1980s, was instrumental in attracting an entirely new clientele-women. Machine makers caught on quickly and began using pastel pinks, blues, and greens to appeal to the ladies. Now over twenty percent of the pachinko-playing population are women. This has prompted some parlors to put in josei kōnā, "women's corners," where only the ladies are allowed to play. There are even a few josei sen'yō, "women only," pachinko parlors scattered around the country.

Other clientele that began appearing with the ladies were young adults and older teens. Although pachinko is not officially recognized as a form of gambling, no one under eighteen can play. Like driving or drinking, as soon as most young people reach the required age, they are anxious to give pachinko a try. They often have experienced the game in a tamer form at the local matsuri, or "festival," where a couple of beat-up pachinko machines from the early fifties are sometimes set up in a gaming stall. One of the largest groups of players are the gakusei pachinko or "student players," who try to supplement their meager spending allowance with a few thousand yen won at pachinko.

As mentioned earlier, parlor innovations, such as the rental ball dispenser, played a part in the revitalization of pachinko in the 1950s. The boom in the 1980s also had its innovation—the "prepaid card."