Stat counters

Just a small article to come back on an article I wrote before.
I was saying that it was important when you play slot to try to understand the setup of the machine.
For that, you're going to want to know the frequency of appearance of the bells etc.. of your machine.

It would be inhuman to remember everything, so, there is small devices you can find to help you.
I don't really know how to call it.
In japanese, you can look for it by "攻略カウンター" which means something like "walk-through counter".

Kachikachi-kun (勝ち勝ちくん)

There is different companies producing them, but they all do the same thing.
The one on the picture is called 勝ち勝ちくん(kachikachi-kun) and it costs around 2500 yen.

You'll just have to press the buttons every time the machine rolls.
It helps, but it can really be a pain in the ass.

So, only you can decide if you want to use it or not !

Hard to tell a ratio of how many people use it. From what i see, maybe 15% of the players I would say ?

Let's talk about pachinko

I know, I spoke a lot about slot since the beginning of that blog.

It's just that there is so many things to say !
Much more than for pachinko.
Even if I love pachinko !

In fact, I started to play slot a lot.
It was kind of my first love, and what made me love pachinko.
Recently, I'm playing both, but more pachinko.

I don't really know why.
Really, because in pachinko, you can't predict anything. You don't do anything.
You just watch the balls falling, the animations, and hoping for the bonus to come.
It sounds boring, and maybe in fact it is yeah, but for a reason I don't know, pachinko machines are much more evolved, and I think they're more fun than slot machines.

Basically, I love going to play because I think it's fun.
Of course, I want to get some money, if not, I wouldn't, but still, if one day I think it's not fun anymore, I will stop.
For me, the fun factor is really important.

And the pachinko machines got that plus alpha thing that makes them more fun.
They usually got some mechanic thing in front of the screen (an eva in "evangelion", a mask in "GARO" etc...), that gives an other dimension to the game, and makes it really fun.
It's stupid, but it's like that !
Also, I guess that as the interaction with the machine is too simple, and can make it boring, the creators of the machine really create great animations and events that makes you having fun.

To explain really briefly what is pachinko, but after all that's all you have to know about it, it's about balls.
You have to turn the wheel on your bottom right, not completely, because if you turn it too much, the balls are going to fall directly.
You have to make them fall by the left side of the machine, with the objective of making them going inside the hole just in the bottom center of the screen.

When a ball can get in, you get one more game, and the machine rolls.
Your pool of games is only 4, so if it's full, and an other ball enters in the hole, it won't count as a new game.
To prevent that, you have to play with the little button on the left of the wheel you're turning.
You can press it with your thumb, and it will stop the balls coming. Then you release it, and the balls are going to come again.
Of course, you could just release the wheel directly instead of using that button, but that just makes things easier, and also, not loosing your "winning position" for the balls to enter inside the hole.

Talking about that, I don't really believe there is a "winning position". As long as the balls falls by the left side of the machine, I believe that statistically, the probability they enter the hole won't vary that much depending on the place they are falling from...
But well, it's just my point of view, so you don't have to believe me !

Freeze, and... surprises !

OK, this time, it's a little specific.
But it's going to be fast.

Sometimes, it can happen, even if that's really rare, that the machine, that should be rolling, just freeze, like it's broken.
If it freezes a little, it's a sign of luck, but on some machines, like "hihouden" (秘宝伝), it can freeze for something like 1 minute !
Don't worry, enjoy the moment, make sure you have a lot of time behind you, because you're going to spend you're day inside the pachinko !
It means that the machine is going to give a lot of medals, and it's all for you !


Also, they're a fun thing about bonuses.
When the bonus animation ends, and you understand that you lost, you always have one more final chance !
It can happen that even if it appears you lost, something completely crazy is going to happen to make you win.
This laps of time when you're hoping for it to happen, or don't even expect anything but it's happening, it's just indescribable. It's magic. If you don't enjoy it, then pachinko is not for you.
But if you do, you really understand the fun of pachinko, and then, you can only love it !

ART

Yeah, until now I was not talking about it, because it was hard to introduce it before talking about the bonuses.

AT Mode on Hihouden (秘宝伝)

On some machines, and they are usually the machine you can make the most money on, they don't give you a lot of bonus.
Instead, they put you in an ART mode.
An ART, is like a special game mode.
When you enter in it, you get around 50% of ROI (Return On Investment).
That means that if you put 50 medals in the machine, you'll receive 75 medals.
Of course it's great, but all the good things got an end.
And when you enter ART, you just hope for it to continue !!

Usually, you enter in that mode with 50 "games" (by game, I mean one roll, meaning 3 medals inserted).
And while you're inside it, you'll receive more and more games (or not), and your counter is going to grow. In really good cases, you'll receive +300 games bonus at one time (the more I saw was +520g on midori don(緑ドン) once)
You can continue getting new games to your game counter like that for hours.
It's really on those machines that you're going to get a lot of money.
On machines where the gamble line is higher like "Hihouden"（秘宝伝）, "Million God"（ミリオンゴッド） or "Bancho 2"（押忍!番長2）, you can expect 10 000 medals at the end of the day (meaning 200 000yen) if you're really lucky.

+200 game bonus ! (on Hihouden 秘宝伝)

Talking a little more about ART, when you enter on it, the machine is going to ask you to press the buttons in a special order. It's not from left to right anymore.
You will see numbers 1, 2, and 3 on the screen, indicating you which button you have to press.
If you press correctly, you'll get a replay, or bells.
And that's how you're going to get all your medals ! By accumulating those "bells", that are giving you only 15 medals !! But if you want your money, you'll have to do this for hundreds, or thousands of times, until your game counter is over.
It sounds completely crazy, I know, but when you're winning, and you're getting more and more medals(=money), you don't really want it to stop, and you pretty much enjoy the moment !
In the worst case, I think you can stay 8 hours inside the parlor doing that.

Completely crazy right ?
And then, you'll understand why Japanese are sitting for hours in front of their machines !

Bonus !

Wait !

I said that the three "7" were not getting aligned by magic, and that the machine will ask for it ?
But then, how does this happen you ask me ?

That's exactly where all the fun about pachinko or slot is.
The animation, and the code color !

The code color ?
What the hell is that ?
Wait just a second, and I come back to it.

Everytime you're about to get a bonus, a "bonus animation" is starting.
For example, if you are playing "Midori Don"（緑ドン）, that we'll show you animation of fights against a fish, snake etc...

Following the animation, it means you can more or less expect a bonus.
That means that some are a real sign of luck, while that for some others, you can't really expect a bonus happen from them.
It's usually written on the book on the left side of the machine.
For one machine, the number of bonus animations can vary, but it's usually around 10 different animations I guess.

From those animations, there is always small differences. The color of a flag during the animation, a sequence that usually doesn't appear, a different object etc... All of them indicates you if you're about to have a bonus or not.

Also, there is that code color I was talking about.
Depending on the light appearing, the color of the text, it indicates you if it's hot or not :
- blue : very small luck
- yellow : small luck
- green : middle luck
- red : high luck
- rainbow : win

Of course, a rainbow almost never happen, and more realistically, the color you are waiting for, is usually the red.

Except those 5 colors that are always the same, there is special backgrounds etc... that indicates that you're about to win, but it's specific on every machine.
So, once again, take time to look at the 2 pages that are on the left of your machine !

Aiming

Slot talk again !

To make it clear :
It's impossible to "force" the machine making it align three "7" if it hasn't decide it.
Even if you aim perfectly for the three "7" to align them by pressing the button at the good timing, the last "7" will simply not align. Even if you pressed at the perfect timing.

Big Bonus on Evangelion

Still, being able to aim for the "7", you HAVE TO be able to do that.
Why ? Because when you finally got a bonus, it's not because magically, three "7" got aligned.
No, the machine will inform you that now, it's possible to align them because it allows it.
So, you have to be able to do it.
If you can't, you'll have to try again and again, until you can do it.
Before, it was possible to call someone from the shop to do it for you, but it seems it's not allowed anymore.
There is no special tactic to do it.
Even if at the beginning it seems hard, it's in fact pretty easy, and everybody can do it.
The first step is to be able to "see" the "7" while it's rotating.
The "7" are always really big, usually red, and so, they stands out from the rest of the symbols.
On some machines, they're even shiny, so they're really easy to see.

The more you play, the more you'll naturally feel how much time it takes for the machine to do a complete revolution, and so, you'll anticipate the next time the "7" is going to appear in front of you.

After a few times, you should do it really easily.

But sometimes, the machine will ask you to aim for the green symbols for example.
It's almost impossible to distinguish them while the machine is rotating.

But there is an easy way to do it.

Example of Reel Arrangement (リール配列)
on Evangelion (エヴァンゲリオン)

Usually, on the left side of you're machine, you'll find one or two pages, with on it written the order of the symbols on each wheel.
For a single game, for example "Evangelion", the order will always be the same.
Then, when you have to aim for a green symbol that appears to be "invisible", just remember where is the green symbol compared to the place of an "aimable symbol" ("7" or "BAR").
Then, if for example, the green symbol is just under a "BAR", and you want to place your green symbol in the middle of the band, simply aim for the BAR for it to be on the top position !

I know that maybe it sounds complicated, but in practice, it's not that hard, and you should be able to do it after some time !

Good aim !

How to play ?

I'll keep talking about slot in this article.
Actually, there is some little differences between all the games.
How ?
Yeah, i know, there's only three buttons, a bet button, and a stick, and that's all you can push to play.
Yes, but game makers intelligently play with that.

But let's start from the beginning.

First of all, you'll need at least 1000 yen to start playing. You can't play with less.
With that, if you play a regular machine, you'll receive 50 medals of 20 yen each.
You put 3 medals inside the slot, then, the bet button is going to become "red".
You press it to "validate" your coins.
Then, you push the "stick" to make the machine start "rolling".
Then, you stop each of the 3 "wheels" pressing the 3 buttons bellow them.

The order you press the 3 buttons on the bottom usually doesn't matter, but on some machines, you have to press the one from the left first. If not, the machine will "buzz", and gives you a small "malus".
So, just as a good habit, you should always start pushing the one from the left.

Then, you have to align symbols.
In diagonal (allowed ones can differs from machines to machines), or horizontally.
On all the machines, it's always the same, except for the bonus symbol combinations :
- 3 blue symbols : replay -> no need to insert medals again (actually, if you do, they will "fall" directly outside the machine).
- 3 yellow symbols (usually bells) : receive 15 coins
- 3 green symbols (usually watermelon) : receive 15 coins, and a small chance
- 1 red symbol (usually cherry) : depending on the machine, getting a red symbol on the left or right "wheel" is sign of luck. The position on the band "up, middle, down" will inform you if it's a big sign of luck, or a small one.
- 3 black symbols "BAR" : regular bonus
- 3 "7" : big bonus.

All those information are written ON the machine, so after you sit, just take a quick look at it.
Especially, pay attention to the cherry, and the bonus combinations.

Get informed !

Following the previous article talking about setup, I was saying that it was actually possible to find the setup of the machine.

How ?
Well, you're going to need a good brain.
Able to remember numbers, and also pattern of symbols.

Example of Pachinko Magazine
(パチンコ　マガジン)

1) Stats
Talking about numbers, maybe some people are able to do it, but I think a normal human being can't do it by himself. Even if he could remember it, doing all the calculations after that would be impossible.
For impossible, to continue with the example of the previous article, for Million God, here are the numbers : http://slot-777.net/kaiseki/milliongod.html (in japanese)

As you can see.
A little bit too much right ?

But in fact, only a few ones are important.
How to know ?
By reading.

In every konbini (convenience store) over here, you'll find those magazines talking about pachinko.
Usually, they're quite expensive for a magazine, but it's still ok (around 600 yen).

In there, you'll find all the important stats you need to remember following the machines.
Because yes, don't forget that different games got different stats !

2) Patterns
In those books, you'll also find the patterns, events etc... that only appears in setup 6.
As it's really specific to every games, I won't speak about it here.
Just take a book talking about your favorite machine, and get the information you need.

The machine setup

Once again, it's the same for pachinko and pachislo.

The only difference is, in pachinko, you can't guess the setup of the machine, while you can figure it out in pachislo.
That is why it's said that if you're really good, you should play pachislo because you're suppose to understand the machine.

Million God Setup

But what is the setup of a machine ?
The setup of the machine is decided by the owner of the pachinko.
It changes everyday before the pachinko parlor opens.
The setup decides if the machine is going to be a winning machine or not.
The fun part is that it's not binary.

The setup goes from 1 to 6. 1 is a bad machine, and 6, a winning one.
That number is going to decide the percentage of money the machine is going to give the player back.
Those numbers are decided by the machine maker.
Those numbers are not secrets, and you can find them everywhere (I'll come back on this point in an other article)
It slightly changes following the machines, but it's roughly the same.
For example, for the really famous machine "Million God"（ミリオンゴッド）, the numbers are :
- Setup 1 : 97.8%
- Setup 2 : 99%
- Setup 3 : 102.9%
- Setup 4 : 105.5%
- Setup 5 : 112.9%
- Setup 6 : 119.6%

As you can see, if you were playing the machine continuously for days, even at setup 1, you wouldn't loose that much money.l
The problem is that one day is a set of data really too short and so, even at setup 6, if you didn't reach the point the machine is going to make you "rich", you'll just loose all your money.
Yes, because even at setup 6, in this example, if the machine gives 12 000 yen, it means it'll have to take (or already took) 10 000 yen back from the player.

That makes that in reality, even if setup 4 is suppose to be a winning machine, the machines that actually are winning are usually only setup 5 and 6 ones.

Well, this is a good thing to know.
But now what ? That's all ?
For pachinko yes.
But for slot, you can find the setup of the machine.

How ?
Next article !

The machine statistics

It works for both pachinko and pachinslo machines.
Whatever place you go, you'll always find it.
On the top of the machines, they're is those small screen that gives you information about the machine.

Typical stat screen (here at Maruhan shop)

Following the places you go, they give you more or less information.
But basically, you are always going to find this :
- the number of times the machine has turn since the morning
- the number of big bonus since the morning, of yesterday, and the day before yesterday
- the number of regular bonus since the morning, of yesterday, and the day before yesterday
- the exact number of turn before the last 10 bonus arrived (more in some places), plus a curb showing the evolution of the machine (showing if it gave more money than it took today. In some places only)

Also, at the entrance of some pachinko parlors, you can sometimes find big touch screens, where you can access all the data of all the machines at once.

Base on that, you have to follow you instinct, and think if the machine is going to give money soon or not.

Pachislo ?

When people talks about pachinko, it can mean two things :
- Pachinko (パチンコ)
- Pachislo (パシスロ) (also called slot(スロット))

This it the two different type of machines you can find.
Pachislo is really similar from what we have in our countries, while pachinko is really specific to Japan.

ひぐらしのなく頃に祭
(higurashii no naku goro ni matsuri)

Let's talk first about pachislo.
In pachislo, you have to put coins (medals), to start playing, and getting more and more medals.
The "normal" value of one medal is 20 yen.
But if you don't want to play a lot of money, or want to play without risks, you can easily find places where you can play for medals of 10 yen or 5 yens.
Of course, with less risk, even if you win, you're not going to get a lot of money at the end.

In pachislo, the objective is to align three "7", and so you can get a bonus.
It varies following which machine you're playing, but usually, they're is two types of bonus :
- big bonus
- regular bonus

Again, it depends on the machine, but with a big bonus, you will receive around 250 medals, and with a regular bonus, around 50 medals.

Of course, you're not really happy when you get "just" a regular bonus, because it's almost nothing.

But as you can see, even if you get a big bonus, you're not going to receive a lot of medals.
You're never gonna find any machine which is going to give you 10 000 medals when you get a big bonus.
So what's the point ?

Medals(メダル)

That's the trick.
It's actually possible to receive 10 000 medals, but it's a loooong way to go.
How is it working ?
The machine is just going to "chain" the bonuses for you.
So once the bonus is over, you'll have to pray that another bonus is going to follow quickly after this one.
That's the hard part. If it's not coming just directly after it, what should you do ?
Stop here ? Continue to gamble a little more to see if it's coming ?
It's really hard to know when to stop.
There is no rule about it. You're the only judge.

But how to judge you are going to tell me ?

There is only two things to help you here, in your war against the machine :
- The statistics of the machine
- Understand the setup of the machine

Pachinko

Hello everyone.

I'm a french guy who has been living in Japan since 2008.
I've been working here since then, and finally, after many years, I joined my colleagues in 2011 to try pachinko with them.

Pachinko in Shinjuku

Before I knew it, I was addicted.

When you come to Japan, you see those crazy buildings everywhere.
With crazy lights all around, they look like a sun in the middle of the night.
Usually, people don't stop by, and even if they try to enter, they just give up because of the noise.
Yes, pachinko parlors are really, really noisy. It doesn't makes you want to stay inside.

Also, a lot of smoke as a lot of people are smoking while playing.
It's really not a good place to be.

But why those huge building with hundreds of machines are always full ?
With everybody's sitting here, doing nothing ?
Yeah, because that's the thing.
When you look at pachinko players, they look like robots. No, more than robots, they look like ghosts. They just never move, just staring at the screen, and just decide to do a different move when they want to smoke a cigarette.

So, why is everybody doing that ?
Why everybody is playing that stupid gamble game, where most of the people loose ?

The answer is simple.
Because as amazing as it can be, it's actually really fun.

Pachinko machines

I think, all around the world, there is always people going to casinos playing similar machines.
The difference is that in pachinko, the animations on the screen, and the machine lighting effects, makes just everything crazy. When a bonus is about to come, it's like the machine is just going to explode, and you look at the screen with so many attention waiting for your bonus to come, that when it finally comes, it feels really good.

Also, it's important to know there is regulation in Japan about those establishments.
The setup of the machines makes that of course, the pachinko parlor will win money, but it also make sure that people can't loose all their money in it.
So it's not as "dangerous" as our casinos.

Well, I could continue like that for hours, but let's stop here for a first post.
After all, I guess everybody who come here already know about pachinko, at least a little, so let's go for it !