It is difficult for general people, including me, to win and get premium in Pachinko, Japanese pinball. It is neither more or less than a gambling; therefore there is no way to win the gambling.
Some rogues firms raised money from gamblers to promise secret way of pachinko game. So far, there have been several court rulings that approved claims of damages or repayments by defrauded customers. A ruling of Osaka District Court on 6th March 2009 constituted a part of customer oriented decisions. The article of the Yomiuri Shimbun reported it as follows.
OSAKA–The Osaka District Court has ordered a Tokyo-based firm to repay 3.86 million yen to a man who had paid the firm for pachinko-playing tips, stating in its ruling that the methods did not work.
Presiding Judge Hiroshi Ogawa has ordered the firm to reimburse the man from Osaka Prefecture for all money he paid for lessons in pachinko “techniques.”
According to the ruling, the 52-year-old dispatch worker approached Nihon Risachi Koryaku Data Banku after seeing an advertisement in a pachinko magazine in which the firm claimed its staff could demonstrate winning pachinko strategies and tutor customers until they won.
After a staff member assured the man that the method was foolproof, the man paid the firm 1.05 million yen in November 2007 and was coached at a pachinko parlor in Osaka Prefecture, but he was unable to make money when he played.
The firm later told the man that in order to win big he would have to learn an additional method.
Thinking the money he had already spent would go to waste if he did not achieve a large win, he made six payments to the firm of between 200,000 yen and 800,000 yen before June last year for additional coaching, but still did not land a jackpot. The man reportedly took out a loan against his life insurance policy to pay for the lessons.
During the trial, the firm insisted that pachinko is a game and that the plaintiff was at fault for thinking it could earn him money.
The judge rejected the firm’s argument, saying: “There was no substance to the methods, and the firm’s advertisement contradicts the reality of the situation. It’s illegal to lure customers in such way.”
The firm did not comment after the ruling other than saying it had not received a written ruling.
In a similar suit, the same firm last month was ordered by the Amagasaki branch of the Kobe District Court to repay about 7 million yen to a man of Nishinomiya, Hyogo Prefecture, who had purchased what he said was useless information.
Supposed winning methods for pachinko have been the subject of complaints sent to consumer centers nationwide. Members of the Osaka Bar Association last year established a defense counsel for people lured into paying for instruction in such methods.
