Market Overview

The number of pachinko parlor operators was 2,053 as of end of December 2022, a decline by 294 companies from the previous year. The number of corporate groups declined to 1,618, a decline by 208 from the preceding year.

The number of pachinko parlors operating nationwide as of end of December 2022 was 7,365, a decline by 774 parlors from the previous year, which was a large decrease than 2021 in which the number of parlors had declined by 639.

The revision of regulations governing pachinko and pachislot machines were in effect in 1 February 2018, which required replacement of pachinko and pachislot models (from #5 to #6 machines) to comply with the new standards that aim to prevent the players from becoming too dependent on games. Because of tremendous costs for purchasing gaming machines in association with the replacement to new machines conforming to new standards amid the long-term sluggishness due to the corona crisis, there were many pachinko parlor operators that withdrew from the business. Even medium-sized or large pachinko parlor companies operating many pachinko parlors focused on streamlining their business by closing some unprofitable parlors, which further accelerated in decreasing the number of pachinko parlors.

Noteworthy Topics

Number of New Pachinko Parlors in 2022 was 99, Of Which 21 Was Large Ones with 1,000 or More Machines

The number of pachinko parlors that had newly opened before 2015 used to exceed 200. Ever since the enhancement of regulations to gaming machines after 2016, however, the merit of opening new parlors had declined, which gradually reduced the rollout of parlors. As the shift to new machines completed in 2022, major pachinko parlors intended to resume the rollout, which increased the new parlors in 2022 to 99, a rise by 6 parlors from the previous year. The number of large-scale parlors with more than 1,000 gaming machines also increased from the previous year by 10 to 21 parlors.

Future Outlook

The advent of 6.5 pachislot models as well as those pachislot machines with improved jackpot performance such as “Smart Pachislot” with its deployment having started since November 2022 has led the pachinko parlor operators to recover the profitability. As “Smart Pachislot” requires high installation cost, the deployment is underway at major parlor operators and large-size parlors with sufficient financial resources, but not at small companies or small-scale parlors.

As the deployment of “Smart Pachinko” is scheduled in April 2023, the smartification of gaming machines can trigger increased differentials between parlors or companies. Small-scale companies and parlors are likely to continue decreasing, which can cause the number of pachinko parlors to be below 7,000 parlors by the end of December 2023.  

Research Outline