1. Who Owns the Arcade Medals You Win?
Medal games are a general term for games played with medals that cannot be exchanged for currency [1]. While it is fun to see your pile grow, you cannot take those medals outside when you leave. The reason is that medals are viewed as a loan from the shop to the customer. When you start, you receive medals lent for play, not medals purchased [4]. If you win many, the shop may hold them for you, but they do not issue a deposit slip [4]. Limits on how many medals can be held and for how long vary by shop.
This rule—"no taking out" and "no deposit slips"—has a clear intention. Understanding this intention becomes much easier when you look at where medal games originated.
2. How Medal Games Removed Gambling from the Machine
The starting point of medal games is said to be an idea by Katsuki Manabe of Sigma in the late 1960s [1]. In Japan, gambling with gambling machines is illegal. Therefore, the goal was to allow play by removing the gambling element from the machines [1]. According to the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Manabe consulted with police and legal scholars to adjust the machines so they were legal and lacked gambling characteristics, based on his 1998 book [1]. There is also a view that the aim was to remove only the dangerous parts while keeping the appeal of gambling machines [1]. At that time, the industry reportedly viewed medal games with suspicion [4].
The JAIA timeline also states that in the late 1960s, a unique Japanese system emerged using medal games as "pure amusement machines without cash exchange or prizes," evolving differently from casino machines [2]. So, "not exchanging for money" was the starting point. How is this specifically defined in law?
3. What Japan's Fuuei Act Says About Prizes and Receipts
Arcade businesses are classified as Type 5 businesses under the Act on Control and Improvement of Amusement Business, etc. (known as the Fuuei Act) [3]. Article 23 prohibits these businesses from providing prizes based on game results [3]. Furthermore, Paragraph 3 applies to these same businesses, stating that it is prohibited to allow customers to take medals out of the shop or to issue documents proving that medals have been deposited [3]. While some online explanations label the ban on taking out medals as Paragraph 4, the law text confirms it is Paragraph 3 [3].
The law establishes three prohibitions: no prizes (under Article 23), and no taking out medals or deposit slips (under Paragraph 3). According to Wikipedia, the purpose is to prevent medals taken outside from being exchanged for goods or money somewhere else [4]. Did medal games become popular despite these strict rules?
4. How Medal Games Grew from Shinjuku to a National Boom
According to Wikipedia, Sigma placed test medal game machines in bowling alley game corners in 1968 and opened "Game Fantasia Milano" in Kabukicho, Shinjuku, in December 1971. This is said to be the first medal game center [4]. In 1973, "Penny Halls" became a huge hit, starting a boom. Domestic manufacturers like Sega, Taito, and Universal entered the market one after another, and by 1974, there were reportedly about 50 medal game centers nationwide [4]. Nintendo also entered in 1975 with "EVR Race" [4].
As popularity grew, bad trends appeared. The Agency for Cultural Affairs notes that from around the 1970s, operators who illegally modified medal game machines to run gambling became a problem [1]. In response, the Medal Game Council was established in 1974 to set operating standards [4]. Upholding the rule of "not exchanging for money" became a shared industry challenge to keep the play going.
5. Horse Racing and Pusher Medal Games: Fun Without Cash Prizes
A representative genre is the horse racing game. The JAIA timeline introduces 1970s horse racing medal games as machines where model horses run on a track, allowing 10 people to play simultaneously [2]. It is said that 50 million yen was invested in development [2]. Since 50 million yen is a rumored figure, it should be taken as a rough estimate.
Another representative is the pusher game. Wikipedia explains that medals stacked on a tiered board are pushed by inserted medals, and those that fall into a designated area are won [4]. Taito's "Dino King" series appeared in 2002, and the latest work features systems like the "Bakuren system" that allow winning large amounts of medals through consecutive wins [6]. In both cases, what you win is medals. Since medals cannot be taken home or exchanged for money or prizes, the race development or the moment the stacked medals collapse becomes the center of the enjoyment [4].
6. How Medals Became Data in Star Horse 4
In November 2019, Sega Interactive's "Star Horse 4" began operation. A game industry article from February 2020 reported that it achieved the industry's first complete digitization of medals [5]. Even when medals change from visible objects to numerical data, the starting point of "no cash exchange" does not change. If the first shop opened in 1971, it took about 48 years to reach complete digitization.
Thus, the history of medal games can be read as a history of consistently upholding the promise of "not exchanging for money," whether using physical medals or digital medals.
7. Try a Pusher Game at Home with Coins and a Box Lid
With an adult, place a box lid on a tray so that the edge of the lid slightly overhangs the tray. Place 3 ten-yen coins on the lid, slightly away from the edge, so the tray is under the edge. Slide 1 ten-yen coin from behind to push them. The coins will move slowly toward the edge, and those that fall will land on the tray. This is a small reproduction of the pusher game mechanism: "push and win what falls." Be careful not to put small coins in your mouth, and return them to their original place after playing.