Japan's Pachinko Industry Eyes a Big Gamble

“Welcome!” two young women in shorts and Hawaiian shirts chime over the clatter of pinballs and J-pop at the entrance to Million pachinko parlor in Tokyo’s Suginami district. Nearby, garish orange, green, and yellow signs woo visitors with promises of fun within: “All your favorite machines are waiting for you, nice and clean. We lead you to the next level of amusement.”

For nearly a century, this is how millions of Japanese office workers, housewives, and retirees have kicked off long, smoky nights out. And their fading-but-still-fervent appetite for the pastime has helped turn pachinko, a pinball-slot machine hybrid that’s managed to skirt Japan’s gambling ban for decades, into an industry with 19 trillion yen ($187 billion) in annual bets—bigger than the economy of New Zealand.