Maruhan grapples with gambling addiction issues

Pachinko hall operator Maruhan held an event on August 28 to raise its understanding of gambling addiction and their own responsibility to combat it.

Before an audience of almost five hundred of Maruhan’s pachinko parlor managers, Naoyuki Nishimura, representative director of the Resourceful Center of Problem Gambling, provided a lecture on both the proper definitions of gambling addiction as well as countermeasures to minimize its harm.

“It is your social responsibility as business operators to take measures against this problem,” Nishimura explained. He added that a proactive and sincere policy encouraging responsible gambling was a prerequisite for becoming “a world-class entertainment company.”

The passage of the IR Implementation Act has put the pachinko industry under intense public scrutiny since the issue of gambling addiction in Japan—until recently largely ignored—has now become a major topic of policy debate.

Maruhan is the operator of the second-largest number of pachinko halls and number one in the industry in terms of sales.

 

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