When I lived in Japan, there was a pachinko arcade in my town that had nothing but pachinko machines lined up in rows like slot machines in a casino. They were skinnier than this, but a couple feet taller than me, and I’m 6" even.
It’s illegal to gamble with money in Japan, but not to gamble with little metal balls, so you buy the balls, play with the machines, and sell back the balls you have left at the end. If you win more balls, then you get more money when you sell them back. A nice little legal loophole for gambling.
Pachinko in Japan is basically what slot machines are here, and they are arranged in a similar manner with similar degrees of design audacity. Most of them also have a slot machine built into them, which spins its reels (digitally, they’re all screens now) whenever you land a ball in a pocket or whatever. You get a fixed payout for landing a ball in a pocket, but you can also theoretically win a jackpot by winning at the slot machine aspect. So think of it like a slot machine that has a luck check before you can even pull the lever, and then another luck check to see if you actually win. Gamblers are already famously bad at understanding statistics, but I guarantee you practically nobody can accurately assess the risk vs. reward of that. It’s diabolical, but apparently also very effective.
For what it’s worth, I have an “old” Metal Army pachinko machine from circa 1998 and even mine has a color LCD screen slot machine reel in the middle of the playfield.
While we’re at it, even my dinky Metal Army machine is quite possibly the single loudest mechanical object ever manufactured in the history of mankind, and that’s when there’s only one of them. A ball bearing factory in full production during a tornado is probably quieter than a pachinko parlor at prime time.
I had one myself, but I think it was from the 60s. The electronics didn’t work anymore, but there was a bell as part of the mechanism that would ring whenever more balls ended up in the tray, so that was enough to make it fun.
![In our mall, there is an arcade. In that arcade is the largest pachinko machine I have ever seen. (14-year-old girl for scale.) [OC]](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/5f0f6911-e46a-45ef-8d53-a4dd7d2b7ba9.png){kind=link}
I agree. I was being a bit facetious. She’s around 5’ 2" or 157 cm.
When I lived in Japan, there was a pachinko arcade in my town that had nothing but pachinko machines lined up in rows like slot machines in a casino. They were skinnier than this, but a couple feet taller than me, and I’m 6" even.
It’s illegal to gamble with money in Japan, but not to gamble with little metal balls, so you buy the balls, play with the machines, and sell back the balls you have left at the end. If you win more balls, then you get more money when you sell them back. A nice little legal loophole for gambling.
Pachinko in Japan is basically what slot machines are here, and they are arranged in a similar manner with similar degrees of design audacity. Most of them also have a slot machine built into them, which spins its reels (digitally, they’re all screens now) whenever you land a ball in a pocket or whatever. You get a fixed payout for landing a ball in a pocket, but you can also theoretically win a jackpot by winning at the slot machine aspect. So think of it like a slot machine that has a luck check before you can even pull the lever, and then another luck check to see if you actually win. Gamblers are already famously bad at understanding statistics, but I guarantee you practically nobody can accurately assess the risk vs. reward of that. It’s diabolical, but apparently also very effective.
For what it’s worth, I have an “old” Metal Army pachinko machine from circa 1998 and even mine has a color LCD screen slot machine reel in the middle of the playfield.
While we’re at it, even my dinky Metal Army machine is quite possibly the single loudest mechanical object ever manufactured in the history of mankind, and that’s when there’s only one of them. A ball bearing factory in full production during a tornado is probably quieter than a pachinko parlor at prime time.
I had one myself, but I think it was from the 60s. The electronics didn’t work anymore, but there was a bell as part of the mechanism that would ring whenever more balls ended up in the tray, so that was enough to make it fun.
It looked very similar to this:
Woah, what a weird coincidence, I also have one of those Metal Army pachinko machines, found it at a flea market around here.
And yes, now that I have more than one pachinko machine my house is probably the loudest in the city.
Do any other sort of games take advantage of that loophole or is it just pachinko?