Is Gambling Addictive? Evidence from Pachinko Participation, Quitting, and Reinitiation

Abstract

Pachinko became popular in Japan during the 1920s.¹ It is still very popular in Japan today and forms the basis of a large industry. A pachinko parlor (or hall or shop) can be found on nearly every street. Based on the “Basic Survey of Service Industries,”² a summary and the estimated added value from pachinko parlors are shown in Table 5.1. From this table, we can infer that pachinko is a sizeable service industry. The market volume of pachinko (i.e., sales or revenues of pachinko parlors) was over 28.469 trillion yen (5.6% of the gross domestic product (GDP)) in 1999. Employees of pachinko parlors numbered over 337.36 thousand (0.52% of total employees, 64.62 million persons in 1999), and the added value of pachinko parlors was about 4.385 trillion yen, which contributed 0.86% of GDP in 1999.