Is Pachinko's future at risk as Japan gets closer to legalizing casinos

[Booniedog85]

Saw this just now.

If gambling laws weren't so strict in Japan, would Pachinko never have become the prime gambling game and instead regular casinos would dominate? Is Pachinko doomed now that Japan is opening the steps to legalization?

With talk of laws legalizing casinos in Japan and the recent approval of a plan to build the first ever casino in Japan by the government, I'm wondering. Without the gambling becoming illegal, would pachinko never have become the national phenomenon in the country that so millions of Japanese adults are obsessed with? Would we today have just regular casinos without pachinko exploiting loopholes to gambling laws due to its nature as a game that seems to require absolute skill on the surface similar to pinball adding flippers to bypass Federal law in America?
With casinos now slowly walking towards the path of being publicly acceptable in Japan and at the crops of becoming legal, is the future of pachinko in jeopardy? Or is pachinko too much of a Japanese institution to simply die and will remain viable as an industry? Maybe a highly profitable niche at worst in the distant future?

First questions, what do you think about OP's belief Pachinko only became popular due to Japan not allowing gambling?

But now to the big real issue. Is Pachinko's future at jeopardy due to Japanese legislation debating about allowing casinos and gambling and already legislation agreed to allow one casino to be built? AS someone who loves this hobby I'm scared that Pachinko will be killed within our lifetimes as OP points out is a possibility. Is there any hope of the market surviving? I'd be happy even if it becomes some underground subculture as OP considers possible so long as we get new pachinko cabinet models with brand new content like newly animated Evangelion scenes.

[MrGneiss]

I've always figured it was the weird laws that kept pachis around this long!! In the past I always figured if regular gambling was made legal full stop, it would just transition to modern boring slots real quick..

But you can never tell with Japan, with pachis going ball/tokenless I could see a slower shift these days..Just moving from credits/redemption to just winning money!!

Also it seems that Japan likes to make many of their weird pachi laws to keep "gambling" addiction low.. So I could see the weird regulations staying if they switched to money!!

I assume the resort casinos they are trying out are meant more to try to bring in gambling tourists.. So for the next decade I don't see it as the biggest threat to pachis..That would probably be from less people playing pachis every year since the 90s boom..

I hope if one day casinos take over Japan that some of the pachi traditions survive in some new casino games!!