Pachinko is a popular Japanese gambling-like game that has its roots in the 1920s. It was originally an adaptation of the American pinball game “Corinthian Game.” The game was very popular at street fairs throughout Japan in the 1930s, but the government prohibited it during WWII. After the war, it grew in popularity again.

By the early 1950s, there were nearly 45’000 pachinko parlours in Japan. However, the pachinko industry went into a decline after the government outlawed the continuous-shooting machine-gun version of the game. Pachinko became popular again after the ban was relaxed and took off even more when a model of the game that combined elements of pachinko with slot machines was introduced in 1980. Today, an estimated 20 million Japanese regularly play pachinko.

Source: Schwartz, D. G. (2013). Roll the bones: The history of gambling.

Gambling through time