Japan is known for a lot of different things. Anime is one of the biggest ones out there, but for a country that has a lot of anime-related gambling, people are surprisingly restricted in what they can bet on. We’ve taken a close look at how this works for Japanese people.
Gambling in Japan
Gambling is surprisingly limited in Japan. Players don’t have access to as many gambling sites as they do in other countries. It’s very similar to Norway in some ways, but both countries have areas that are more, and less restricted than the other. A good example would be the online casinos, such as the ones found at https://norgescasino.com, but Japan doesn’t have any legal online casinos.
However, what is legal in Japan, is the ability to play at a real-world casino. These are available in three different areas. Each one is regulated by the government, but it is operated by an outside company. This is very different to Norway where only the government can operate casinos. It has a complete monopoly on gambling within the country.
What is slightly concerning, is how most online gambling operations in Japan are operated by criminals. Many other countries have shown how properly regulated online casinos can be a positive. Online gaming, as a whole, is already popular within Japan, and in fact around the world, so it would make sense to regulate this industry within the country.
What is Legal
There are a lot of different legal gambling options within Japan. For a long time, horse racing and motor racing have been legal options. On top of this, there have been lotteries available, with some of them offering amazing prizes to players.
Casinos weren’t made legal until 2018 though. This is quite a late entry into the casino market, especially as it was land-based casinos that were made available to players. There are three different areas that offer casinos with some big-name companies operating in these areas.
Despite racing and casinos being available, none of these are the biggest gambling choice for Japanese players. Pachinko is by far the most popular way to gamble within the country. It is a machine that’s like a pinball machine crossed with a slot machine. It actually accounts for around half of the total leisure time that’s spent in the entire country.
This makes it a massive part of the culture within Japan, and as such, it has been legal to gamble on Pachinko machines for a long time. Although Japan has always tended to steer away from gambling, Pachinko managed to avoid this due to the fact it was part of the culture within the country.
With this being the case, it’s quite a surprise that other forms of gambling have so much trouble being legalised.