Market Overview

Though once called as the “30-Trillion-Yen industry”, the pachinko industry has kept on shrinking since the mid-2000s. Revisions to the regulations governing pachinko and pachi-slot machines were in effect in 2018, which required replacement of pachinko and pachi-slot models (from #5 to #6 machines) by the end of January 2022 to comply with the new standards. While pachinko parlor operators suffered from financial burdens for the replacement, 2020 saw behavior restrictions from COVID-19 crisis that led the industry to stagnate and further diminished the market size.
Later, although deployment of “Smart Pachi-Slot (*) machines” that started in November 2022, enabling to play without touching the medals, may fuel the market to uptick temporarily, the declining numbers of pachinko parlors, gaming machines installed, and pachinko players are likely to scale down the market gradually.   

*Smart Pachi-Slot refers to a pachi-slot machine that allows players to play without the need of using physical gaming medals by digitizing the medals. Smart Pachinko also allows players not to touch the gaming balls while playing by containing and circulating the balls inside the machine. Both smart machines give advantages to both operators and players, the former in business operability and crime control, the latter in convenience and sanitary safety, and others. Because of modifications in regulations, both machines provide wider room in spec designing than conventional machines, which enable to develop diverse gaming features.

Noteworthy Topics

Based on YANO Pachinko Database, the research has forecasted the future key indicators of number of pachinko parlors and number of gaming machines installed, reflecting the future pachinko industry by 2028.

Number of Pachinko Parlors
As of end of 2022, the number of parlors, according to the National Police Agency based on the operating license, was 7,665, down by 793 parlors (9.4%) from the previous year. Large-scale parlors with many gaming machine installations have long had more advantages to attract customers than small-scale parlors in that they can prepare popular machines in volume. On the contrary, small parlors with a small number of machines installed face difficulty in customer attraction, causing them to withdraw from the business. This tendency is likely to continue, with the number of pachinko parlors to decline to 5,900 (middle-level forecast) by 2028.  

Number of Pachinko & Pachi-Slot Machine Installations
As of end of 2022, the number of pachinko and pachi-slot gaming machines installed, according to the National Police Agency based on the operating license, was 3,564,039. As there were business withdrawals by pachinko parlors with a small number of gaming machine installations, the average number of gaming machine installations per parlor was on the rise, from 378 per parlor in 2012 to 465 at the end of 2022. This number seemed to continue increasing, despite the number of pachinko parlors declining. The number of pachinko and pachi-slot gaming machine installations expects gradual decrease to 3,084 thousand units (middle-level forecast) by 2028.

Research Outline