TOKYO: The National Police Agency (NPA) has found that about 3.37 million people in Japan are using or have used online casinos. The agency also said that the market for online casinos here has an estimated worth of about ¥1.2 trillion (US$0.081 trillion) a year.
The findings come from a survey commissioned by the NPA. It is the first time the government has made public the results of a survey on online casinos.
The survey showed that many users are in their 30s or younger. Forty percent of those who have gambled online reportedly said they were unaware that doing so is illegal in Japan.
Gambling is illegal except in cases where it is publicly run, such as horse racing and keirin cycling races. In recent years, however, many online casinos have started offering services in Japanese.
The survey’s findings make clear that more public awareness is needed on the issue and that measures are needed to prevent people from using such services.
The agency commissioned a private company to conduct an online survey of those ages 15 to 79 starting from July last year. A total of 27,145 people responded.
Of these respondents, 550 said they were using online casinos, while 392 said they had previously used the sites, meaning about 3.5 per cent of the respondents had gambled online. Extrapolating out to the population of each age group, about 1.97 million people in the country were estimated to be gambling on online casinos, and about 3.37 million are thought to have done so at some point.
Those in their 20s were the most likely to have used the casinos at 31 per cent, followed by those in their 30s at 27 per cent, and those in their 40s at 20 per cent, while six per cent were between the ages of 10 and 19.
Many respondents said they started gambling online due to influencers and through free versions of online casino sites.
The survey also selected 500 respondents who said they had used online casinos and asked them how much they spent on the sites.
The most popular casino, with 186 people saying they had bet there, was Vera&John, which is based in Curacao, a Dutch territory in Central America. The next most popular at 125 users was Casinosecret, also based in Curacao, and 106 said they had used Queen Casino, which is run out of Costa Rica.
The top 40 online casino sites offering services in Japanese are operated by businesses that are authorised to provide gambling services in their own country. About 70 per cent of the sites are run by businesses in Curacao. Of the 40 sites, 35 received about 17 million hits from Japan in total between August and October last year.
In some cases, celebrities act as the face of these casinos. The NPA plans to warn the public that such activities could be considered aiding and abetting the act of gambling.
Use of online casinos in Japan has flourished thanks to local businesses that function as agents, settling bets for overseas casino operators, as well as due to affiliates who promote casino websites through their blogs and videos. Police are cracking down on such parties on suspicion that they are aiding and abetting the act of gambling. - The Yomiuri Shimbun via The Japan News/ANN
