Police Threaten Online Casino Crackdown

Akihabara News (Tokyo) — The National Police Agency has issued a warning that those who engage in online gambling face possible arrest.

It is not clear, however, that this warning will be followed by any serious effort to enforce laws against online gambling. These laws carry a maximum fine of up to ¥500,000 (US$3,370) or a prison term as long as three years.

In fact, the popularity of online gambling in Japan has exploded in recent years.

While reliable figures are hard to come by, research company IMARC Group estimates that the total size of the Japan online gambling market size reached US$6.7 billion last year and is on track to exceed US$10 billion by 2027.

Nearly all of the online casinos, even those operating in Japanese language, are based overseas. This means that almost all of the money spent by online gamblers in Japan is flowing overseas, and not even producing tax income for the Japanese state.

The number of people arrested for online gambling has never exceeded eighteen people in any given year.

Even then, there seems to be only one case in which a gambler using their home computer was arrested. More routinely, arrests occur when police bust illegal casinos in urban commercial zones and some patrons happen to be on site when the raid takes place.

Most of these urban illegal casinos have links–or suspected links–to organized crime.

The reality, however, is that the National Police Agency has so far declined to make any serious effort to enforce online gambling laws. While informed observers believe that police are tracking illicit developments closely, there has been no known effort even to rein in the proliferation of online advertisements for casinos.

At present, the available legalized gambling options in Japan are the parimutuel-betting “public sports” such as horse racing, bicycle racing, powerboat racing, and motorcycle racing; as well as public lotteries. Many have argued that pachinko and pachislot are also forms of gambling, but these have been legally defined in Japan as “amusement” activities.

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