Japan’s pinball gambling industry rakes in 30 times more cash than Las Vegas casinos

REUTERS/Issei Kato

• Japan spends $200 billion on pachinko, a vertical pinball game, every year.
• Despite a ban on most gambling, the industry employs more people than the top 10 car manufacturers and accounts for nearly half of the country's leisure activities.
• The industry has long been run by Korean Japanese who have faced decades of discrimination and were unable to enter the traditional workforce after World War II.
• Some parlour owners support North Korea and reportedly sent hundreds of millions of dollars to the regime.
• Casinos have recently been legalized, but revenue estimates don't come close to pachinko.

---

Each year, Japanese gamblers spend $200 billion on vertical pinball-like slot machines called pachinko.

That's 30 times the annual gambling revenue of Las Vegas, double Japan's export car industry, and more than New Zealand's entire GDP.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

NOW WATCH: The man that won the Nobel Prize in economics for contract theory shares his thoughts on smart contracts

See Also:

• These photos reveal why the 26-year-old organizer of the disastrous Fyre Festival could spend 10 years in prison
• An anti-Trump movement is calling for the boycott of these retailers
• All 73 of Netflix's notable original shows, ranked from worst to best

SEE ALSO: No entry: How Japan's shockingly low refugee intake is shaped by the paradox of isolation, a demographic time bomb, and the fear of North Korea

from Business Insider https://ift.tt/2mLISQs