Culture and history

The Japanese gambling tradition combines ancient practices and modern popular culture.

In the Edo and Meiji eras, the authorities repeatedly banned amateur games for money, but household formats - hanefuda/oicho-kabu, street lotteries, amateur mahjong - remained popular.

In the 20th century, the state legalized "socially useful" bets: horse racing (keiba), keirin, boat racing (kyōtei), and later auto/motorcycle racing and lotteries (takarakuji), turning them into part of urban everyday life and financing sports/infrastructure.

After the war, the phenomenon of pachinko/pachislot arose: noisy, bright salons with a prize exchange system became a symbol of Japanese neon and labor leisure.

In pop culture, excitement - from manga and anime (Kaiji, Akagi) to cinema - serves as a metaphor for risk and the will to win; in everyday life there are "signs of good luck" (daruma, maneki-neko).

Modern Japan combines respect for the rules and responsible play (severe restrictions and self-exclusion) with a steady craving for rituals of luck and competition, and the cultural code of gambling continues to be updated along with digital formats and future IR resorts.