Around 7.4% of all pachinko parlors in Japan have disappeared during the pandemic

According to the regular monthly survey of All Japan Amusement Business Cooperative Association, to which about 90% of all pachinko businesses are in, at the end of March the number of pachinko outlets were 111 lesser compared to the end of February. March was a devastating month for Japan’s pachinko industry, with more than a hundred parlors disappearing in that short period at the end of the fiscal year.

At the end of the fiscal year 2020, the organization counted 8,063 pachinko parlors as its members. The same figure at the end of fiscal year 2019 was 8,710 parlors, indicating that about 7.4 % of all pachinko parlors in Japan have departed throughout the covid-19 period.

The All Japan Amusement Business Cooperative Association reports that the number of pachinko machines at its member stores was 2,187,288, a decrease of 31,568 from the previous month, and the number of pachislot machines was 1,421,139, a decrease of 20,769, as of the end of March 2021. Furthermore, according to Asia Gaming Brief, pachinko parlor revenues are running at about 75 percent of the levels that they attained before the onset of the Covid pandemic. The monthly “Statistical Survey of Specific Service Industries” conducted by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry found that in February sales per game machine in the roughly 1,200 parlors surveyed were JPY301,000 (US$2,760), or about 75.2 percent the 2020 figure. The January 2021 figures were almost exactly the same. Nevertheless, Pachinko sales have never entirely recovered. In October 2020, sales per game machine did reach about 83.6 percent of the pre-pandemic level, but the onset of the Covid third wave reduced this figure to the current levels.

As  Japan enters a fourth wave of the pandemic, further recovery that is expected in the near term seems too far-fetched.

Back in June, SiGMA News reported that Pachinko halls across the country resulting in year-on-year decline in REVENUE.

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