Pachinko has become one of the largest parts of the gambling industry, and has become immensely popularised in large parts of Asia. It originates from Japan and has become both a recreational way to have fun and a form of high-stakes gambling. It’s very similar to slot machines, though it does carry that very peculiar range of changes.
Low-stakes pachinko machines are one of the very few forms of permitted (or at least ignored) forms of gambling that is permitted in Japan. The pachinko market makes up a massive part of the Japanese economy, with more gambling revenue made by the pachinko market than in Las Vegas, Singapore, and Macau all combined!
The actual system is somewhat odd, too. You need to take a number of metal balls that are given to you by your payment, and then you put the balls into the machine using a lever. The balls then fall through a host of different pins, levers, traps, and various other blockades. If it can reach the bottom of the machine, then you are going to be declared a winner for that round.
Other forms of pachinko also use a digital slot machine style solution, which means getting three or more symbols in a row to win the jackpot. However, each ball that is put into the system constitutes one spin, but you can only spin so many balls at one time.
Since every ball is equal to a number of points, you then take those points to a pachinko vendor and trade them in. It’s a rather confusing game if you have never played before, but like most games it simply takes 2-3 turns for you to quickly understand the way that it work and, frankly, how much fun you could be having with a pachinko machine!