Joe Cyr aka "Pachipro" talks about his time as a professional pachinko player in Japan

I had started playing pachinko when I was in the service around 1975. I never won more than 3 or 4 thousand yen. (Back then yen was 300/$ so that was around $10-$13. I probably lost more than I won. I didn’t know at the time that you could cash your balls into yen so I opted for the prizes or food. It was quite boring and a little fun at the same time, but time flew quickly. It was a good way to pass a Saturday afternoon before hitting the bars at night.

I became an avid player in my college days when I discovered that you could get cash. I didn’t win a lot. Some days I would lose 3 or 5,000 yen and on others I would profit 6 or 7,000 yen for a 2 or 3,000 yen investment. I didn’t play maybe 2-3 times/week. By 1980 all machines had been converted to automatic and you could win a little more than with the manual machines.

If anyone knows anything about Pachinko it is this: YOU ALWAYS WIN ON THE FIRST FEW DAYS OF A PARLOR INSTALLING NEW MACHINES. The machines are loose and 90% of the people win. After a couple of days things return to normal. About 2-3 times per year they will install new machines. Not all the machines are replaced. Maybe 20-50 or more, but it’s enough to fill the place as all machines are loose.

This story goes back to January1981 when a new type of pachinko machine was first introduced called the “Fever” and “Bravo” type. I was in my senior year at Sophia University (上智 大学). A contract I had teaching had just expired and I was in between jobs and wondering what I was going to do for money. Do I sign a new contract with them or maybe find something different closer to home?

I had just gotten off the train about 5pm and was walking home when I heard the familiar music of a pachinko parlor indicating that they had new machines. Back then they used to hire a group of musicians in traditional garb who played the flute, drums and a cymbal like instrument outside. Now they just have a bunch of huge flowers outside and include fliers in the newspapers. One can always tell when a place has new machines when you see 100 or so people lined up outside about 3 or 4pm on the first day and around noon on the second and third day.

Why not give it a shot I thought, free money. I could use 4 or 5,000 yen. The place was already opened and I went in. Practically 75% of the machines had been replaced with a new type that I had never seen before. Instead of the familiar wings of an airplane or something else in the center that would open when a ball went into a special slot, this was a new type that looked like a slot machine. The place was packed and, luckily I found an empty machine. I looked around and saw that a lot of people had large boxes of balls sitting on the floor. More than I had ever seen before. Wow I thought, this place is really loose.

I sat down and put in my usual 200 yen for 60 balls. This was pretty cool. When a ball went into a hole in the middle, the three sets of numbers would spin like a slot machine. The directions said that if the numbers stopped on “333” or “777” it would pay out a bonus 15 times. If it stopped on “337” or “773” a small bonus would be paid. I didn’t understand this, but continued to play. I lost my 200 yen and put in more. This was really cool. I had never seen digital pachinko machines before.

After investing about 1,000 yen I hit “777”. Bells went off and the machine lit up like a Christmas tree. A small tray opened up on the bottom and balls flew in. For each ball that went in I received 15 bonus balls. Balls were coming out like crazy. I thought I broke the machine or something as something like this had never happened before. After 10 balls went in, the tray would close and open again. 10 more balls and so on until it did it 15 times. In all the machine spit out about 3,500 balls as a jackpot. I had a huge box of balls that I knew was worth about 7,500 yen at 2.5 yen/ball.

To my surprise they didn’t close the machine on me like they usually do when you win that many balls. Usually when you won about 3,500 balls they would close the machine and sell it for 500 yen later in the day. A closed machine indicated that the pins were pretty open. This was unbelievable! It used to take at least 3-5 hours or more with the other types of machines to win this many balls. And I did it in a matter of minutes!

I continued playing and within 20 minutes I hit “333”. Jackpot! Another 3,500 balls. The machine was closed, a cart was brought, and my 2 boxes of balls were wheeled to the counter. Wow! I knew I had about 15,000 yen here. I opted for cash and came out with about 14,000 yen! I’m going to try this again.

Back in I went, found another empty machine and within 2,000 yen I hit it again and about 45 minutes later I hit it again! Closed again and this time about 13,000 yen in winnings. This is unbelievable.

Back in I went. This time it took a little longer to hit the Jackpot. Maybe about an hour or more, but the funny thing was that I only put in 500 yen. Balls kept falling in the center slot like crazy as the pins to spin the numbers was quite open. For every ball that fell in, 15 more would come out. Honestly, the machine never stopped spinning. I closed that machine and took away another 14,000 or so yen in about 3 hours. I decided not to push my luck, but I sure as hell would be coming back tomorrow. All in all I profited that day over 40,000 yen. I never won more that 10-12,000 in a single day before, and that was extremely rare.

The next day I was there at the noon opening time. I spent about 4 hours there and profited over 20,000 yen. (I invested about 4,000 yen) I would’ve stayed longer, but I had to get to classes at night.

The next day I was there at noon and came away with another 20,000 or so in about 5 hours. Wow, this is unreal. Can these new machines be really that loose? Here I was after three days with about 80,000 yen in profit. About 2 ? times my rent!

Of course I was there the following day at the 10am opening. Now the honeymoon was over. Things should be back to normal. Within a couple of hours and 4,000 yen invested I closed another machine. I continued playing all day until about 6pm and came away with over 15,000 in profit. Maybe one can really make a living out of this I thought. I heard about the so-called “Pachipros” who did nothing, but play pachinko all day, everyday. I thought it would be boring to play everyday, but this type of new machine is fun!

I continued going everyday (except Sunday as that was always the most crowded day) until I became a regular. Some days I stayed 12 hours, but mostly I stayed until about 6pm. Some days I did lose about 10-20,000 yen, but most days I profited a minimum of 10,000 yen and the really great days I came away with over 50,000 or more in winnings.

A couple of regulars taught me a few rules on how they profit. For example:

-Never lose more than 10-20,000 yen. Just walk away and come back tomorrow.

-Set a limit on winnings. Say 10 ?30,000 yen. When that is reached leave, no matter how early it is. More than likely you’ll lose some of it back.

-If a machine is spinning well but not hitting the jackpot, take a break and go to lunch or something. They will hold the machine for 45 minutes. It might hit later as it’s controlled by computer.
There are more, but I won’t go into them here.

I was given the name “Pachipro” by the regulars and welcomed into their group. There were about 15 regulars at that place who did nothing but that. No job, no nothing. Their only income was pachinko and Pachislo. I completely understood how that could be done as, for almost a year, I never worked, ate out everyday, paid all my rent and bills and had money to burn at the bars at night with the income from Pachinko. And it was a helluva lot of fun too.

These days I only play Pachislo (The slot machines at pachinko parlors). The pachinko type machines have become really sophisticated and it is really hard to win if you don’t invest 10 ? 20,000 yen or more. You can lose that in 45 min. Of course you can win with less than that invested, but not often. They also tease you too much and instead of 15 balls coming from a spin, you only get 5-7 depending on the machine. But, when you win, you really win! Also, they don’t close machines these days. I’ve seen guys sitting at machines with 8, 9, 10 or more boxes! At 7,500 yen/box that is a lot of money. My best day was in about 1998 when I won 120,000 yen in 8 hours! The Pachislos are, in my opinion, a lot easier. This past March I walked away with about $700 in profit for a few days fun. In another thread, if you’re interested, I’ll tell you how to pick the best machines, when to leave a machine, and when to stay, etc.

I never did go back to teaching English. I graduated from Sophia University in April 1981 and since my visa didn’t expire until December, I played everyday until I left for new horizons in New York that December.

With a degree in International Business and Economics and a fairly fluent knowledge of Japanese, I would knock them dead. Big Salary here I come! The Japanese economy is booming, Japanese management style is becoming the rage and I have the keys to help bridge the gap between Japanese and American companies! NOT! But that is another story…..

Originally posted on the Sushicam forums July 16, 2004