The Japanese government has proposed a set of measures to help prevent gambling addiction, which includes installing facial recognition systems at pachinko parlors, boat and horse racing venues. The aim is to make it possible to refuse entry of verified gambling addicts and minors (under the age of 20).
The measures also call for removing ATM machines from the premises of pachinko parlors, Sankei Shimbun reported.
The government has invited the public to share their thoughts online regarding these gambling addiction initiatives until March 27. Based on this collective response, the government will then finalize a policy for the nation’s public gambling facilities by the end of April.
In April 2018, the government approved the development and operation of integrated resorts (IRs), which include on-site casinos. However, this led to public concern about an increase in gambling addiction. Then, last October, the Basic Act on Countermeasures Against Gambling Addiction came into force that holds present operators of gambling facilities responsible to comply with these proposed government regulations.
Among the anti-addiction proposals is installing a face-based authentication system at gambling venues and pachinko parlors by 2021, whereby images of the addict can be stored at the request of addicts themselves or their families. They will then be refused admittance. Advertisements will also abide by a set of guidelines dictating a standardized size, format, and text on the dangers of wagering money. Furthermore, TV commercials will be used to call attention to these risks in a designated time frame.
Meanwhile, 20 major cities in Japan have said they will begin setting up treatment and support centers for gambling addicts by 2020.
© Japan Today
26 Comments
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Yubaru
Easy to say. Close down all vice related establishments and watch them all go underground. Next you'll be saying outlaw alcohol, and cigarettes, how about unhealthy food too while you are at it.
Just saying, "close them down" is not a realistic nor viable solution.
Speed
Seems like the state is getting a little too involved in people's private affairs.
gogogo
Until the government actually grows some and actually doesn't grey area the entire industry nothing will be done.
Roger Jolly
Why everything has to be controlled and everybody observed in this country? What happened to 'liberty' and 'freedom' of behaving as we want (also within laws limits)?
Open Minded
I though gambling was prohibited in Japan and that pachinko was a skill game with no reward money...???????
LunarTuner
Proverbial banging your head against a brick wall applies here. One thing that is suprising is the lack of suburban uprisings that say "Nah, don't build that monstrosity in our neighborhood" or maybe there is but all I know is there is a new 5 story monolith with a frkn lion on top with LED eyes that pierce the night looking at my balcony
Yubaru
Wrong country. Where in the Japanese constitution or any law or anywhere HERE is there any thing about "liberty and freedom"?
Bugle Boy of Company B
So this is how government sanctioned tracking of Japan's citizens will begin.
Disillusioned
I can't count the amount of times I've the "Pachinko is not gambling" excuse. Does this mean the government is admitting it is gambling but have let it be run illegally for half a century?
Around 20% of Japanese adults play Pachinko regularly. Of that 20% half have gambling addiction issues although, it's not really gambling, is it? (roll eyes)
thepersoniamnow
WTF, the whole point of gambling is to be addicted to it.
gordonska
I am a British visitor to Japan recently having made two separate visits to Osaka & Tokyo. I was staggered & horrified to see so many massive gambling parlours. To see literally hundred of obsessed Japanese gamblers in a world of their own being fed & watered by the house staff to encourage prolonged visits was a sight to behold. Of course Japan is not the only country to have this problem, but the sheer "density" of this moronic gambling made me wonder if Japanese society has a deep problem which may involve isolation , depression etc ?
JenniSchiebel
What a great idea, in a country where it seems people wear surgical masks in public half the time.
Great. As long as they also remove the ATMs from the 7-11s right down the street from the pachinko places, this measure should work like a charm.
Open Minded
Interesting article from BBC in 2012.......
In a country where gambling is prohibited.....:
*It sounds elaborate for a game, but pachinko is both big business and a national obsession – there are more than 12,500 pachinko halls in Japan, some with slot machines, which together make four times as much profit as all the rest of the world’s legal casino gambling combined. The game itself generates 30 trillion yen profit a year for the pachinko companies.*
sf2k
close them down and stop casino development
Braze
Big brother is watching, they're doing this all over the West and it is escalating, yet nobody objects, they collect all your data, emails, telephone calls, you name it, and it's all stored away for when it's needed. You step on to almost any street in any major city, and the cameras are rolling.
The 10 planks of the Communist manifesto are almost complete in the West, all they need now really is all of your weapons and when I say weapons that means anything and everything that could possibly be used against the State, that includes the almighty pen. Soon they'll have you turning in your neighbor for their violations of rules made up by some nameless unelected bureaucrat, in fact it's already going down. But still they sleep..
http://laissez-fairerepublic.com/tenplanks.html
smithinjapan
Hahaha... meanwhile, an old-coworker is still looking for a cheaper apartment because of the debt he's in from playing pachinko. They aren't interested in helping anyone at all, or they wouldn't be putting a bunch of drugs in front of an addict and saying, "We trust you'll only use a bit". If they government cared, they wouldn't be licking their chops over starting casinos to begin with. Watching this unfold is sickening. Crime and poverty are about to increase exponentially, and they know it -- that's why they are starting to set up support centers (which won't run effectively anyway).
Kobe White Bar Owner
Thought gambling was illegal in Japan?....
Yubaru
Only said by someone who has never gambled.
Wolfpack
It’s not the governments responsibility to control the impulses of their citizens - and consider yourself free. People have numerous opportunities to ruin the heir own lives by their inability to put off their immediate needs or gratification.
Efforts to use technology to solve personal addictive problems is like declaring the outright prohibition of alcohol. Human nature cannot be controlled by government means. Culture, religion, and other more organic means is what shapes community behaviors.
Open Minded
This just make me think that there is never any article about yakuza (all these places are run/controlled by them). And why politics do not enforce the no gambling law with pachinkos. Any connections?
I would be happy to hear JT comment on that!
Yubaru
This is bullsnit.
Yubaru
No, people, people like to assume that organized crime and pachinko are connected but unless someone can give hard facts actually proving it I would take a large portion of what you read about it here with a grain of salt.
Also pachinko and slots fall into a grey area, and technically speaking people are not playing for money. Pachinko parlors have all sorts of "goods" that people can exchange their winnings for, or they can do what most people do is trade in their winnings for some tokens which they then take off the property of the pachinko parlor, although typically close enough to be a part of the same grounds in many cases, and "sell" those tokens for cash.
Nothing illegal about it.
sir_bentley28
Yeah, right! I LOVE how they go through all these silly ideas to help people deal with or tackle the pachinko gambling addiction problem instead of taking a more sudden, more effective approach. Just off the top of my head :
*Limit ALL machines to a card system with a fingerprint scanner which allows the card to be used only 2 times a week for 1 hour and 1 card per person. If they try to get a new card at any other parlour, the system will block them because their fingerprint is already on file. Any kind of fraudulent attempts to "cheat the system" (use someone else's card, alter your card, use a fake fingerprint, ect.) will result in 2 years jail time plus a 100,000 yen fine. *A simple, yet effective idea that's better that can also weed out underage gamblers.
Serrano
I BET this plan doesn't work too well.
WTF, the whole point of gambling is to be addicted to it.
The whole point of gambling is to get money just by getting lucky instead of doing actual work.
Wolfpack
What should be looked in to is whether large sums of this money ends up in North Korea and helps prop up Little Kim’s Socialist dictatorship?
Whatsnext
Pachinko parlors already use facial recognition to game it's users for years.