I Live in the Detroit of Pachinko

Near our house, we can see the Sphinx, the Statue of Liberty, and many other interesting wonders of world. These are pachinko parlors, a major source of entertainment for many Japanese men and women in Japan. An odd game which I don’t pretend to understand, you basically buy a bucket of balls for $50, then sit for hours trying to hold a controller in just the right position to make most of the balls go into certain holes in the pachinko machine. Since “gambling” is illegal in Japan, except for certain events like horse, boat and bicycle racing, you don’t win money if you get more balls than you started out with — you get valuable prizes which you redeem for cash at a shady building next to the pachinko parlor. For whatever reason, J-List’s home prefecture of Gunma is the “Detroit” of the pachinko world, with several of the largest manufacturers located here.