What Is The Chance Of Japan Legalizing Online Gambling?

Despite being quite influenced by the West during the last 50-60 years, Japan still remains a VERY unique country with its extremely unique laws and customs. For example, despite the fact that only 0.7% of Japan’s population identifies as Christian, Christmas remains an important holiday for family bonding and romantic get-togethers… Which is often celebrated with the consumption of copious amounts of KFC. But Japan’s weirdness goes way beyond fun anecdotes like this – they’re an entirely different market altogether. For example, when videogames are released, they often have different release dates for North America & Australia, Europe and Japan, and that doesn’t just apply to the games that are being manufactured there. And, of course, numerous laws are radically different from those found in the West – the age of consent is only 13, firearms are completely forbidden except for soldiers and police officers, the military is abolished safe for a defense force meant to protect the country in case of an invasion, and, most importantly for us, most forms of gambling are completely forbidden. There’s a lottery, and as I’ve written before people like to cheat the system by playing pachinko for real money, but casinos (online or offline), betting on most sports, bingo and other similar activities that most Europeans take for granted are simply not available.

There are numerous theories about why gambling is illegal, but we’re not here to talk about that. The more important question we should be asking is whether there’s a chance that gambling (be it physical, online or both) can ever be made legal according to the country’s criminal code. And I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that it’s not like nobody wants to legalize gambling – it’s a lucrative market, and the government knows that they can reign in some serious cash through taxes. They’re already seeing the benefits of gambling thanks to things like sports betting and lotto, and legalizing gambling in general will at the very least cut off the middle man during pachinko transactions, bringing in a TON of lost profits directly to the government, without even counting all of the new markets that will open up with land and online casinos. As a matter of fact, as early as 2015 a legislature that would legalize gambling was brought to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, but this is where the bad news comes into play, as the bill was ultimately rejected. It wasn’t out of any malice, necessarily, it was just that legalizing gambling wasn’t the Party’s priority during that particular session. An extra session will be scheduled to discuss legalizing gambling in particular, but as of the time of this writing that session hasn’t happened yet – all things considered, it might not happen any time soon, either.

But there is hope! Once the session happens, there’s actually a very good chance that gambling might finally be legalized in Japan. I, at the very least, believe that it’s an inevitability within the next 5-10 years, as there are just way too many arguments in favor of a legalization for it not to happen. Sadly, us Westerners can do little but keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best!