Sure plays a mean pinball...

[Taro Toporific]

A mean pinball
Japan's national obsession is a target for gangsters and cheatsJustin McCurry in Tokyo/ Monday August 16, 2004
The Guardian...The pachinko industry is worth an eye-watering 29 trillion yen (£140bn) - more than Japan's top five carmakers combined. ...
....For Seiji Goto, however, it is a serious business. The Osaka native prepares for a day at a pachinko parlour with the same meticulous attention to detail of a spy on a mission. When he plays pachinko, he does so not for fun, but for sums of money most of his fellow players can only dream about.
That is because he cheats. Unbeknown to his fellow players and the parlour managers, concealed beneath his clothes is a sophisticated - and illegal - box of tricks that can earn him ¥100,000 in a single day.
He uses a signal emitted by a battery-powered antenna to propel the steel balls at exactly the speed required to send them tumbling through the pins and into a winning hole. Then it is simply a matter of sitting back and watching the ball-count rise....

[amdg]

He uses a signal emitted by a battery-powered antenna to propel the steel balls at exactly the speed required to send them tumbling through the pins and into a winning hole.

Ehhh? The ball speed is controlled mechanically with a hand dial. So on the one hand its going to look a little suspicious if he's not touching the dial, and on the other hand if he is touching the dial he will be interfering with the optimal speed set by the antenna, won't he? Any pachinkas know how this antenna works? Also, its a matter of personal judgment to decide what the optimal speed is, since each machine is slightly different, so I can't see how this antenna is going to help. The only electronic cheating devices I know of are the ones that call tell which machines are currently in a 'good' mood.

[AssKissinger]

I know one thing. If they caught you in there with some kind of cheater you'd be all set for dick suckin' (no teeth).

[Taro Toporific]

He uses a signal emitted by a battery-powered antenna to propel the steel balls at exactly the speed required to send them tumbling through the pins and into a winning hole.

Ehhh? .... Any pachinkas know how this antenna works? .

Obviously, the tech details are left out of the story.

I would assume that *IF* an antenna was really being used to "propel the steel balls" what article is really refering to is the old way of cheating using an handheld electromagnet to make the balls fall in a favorable path (now known and easy to spot way of cheating). However, an antenna to could be used to "propel" (sic) the steel balls by jammning or influencing the electromagnet imbedded in the ball ejection track of the pachinko machine .

There is an electromagnet in track which is used to slightly and randomly slow or influence/wobble the the steel ball just before it starts its drop to prevent people from becoming too skilled. This makes the pachinko game more based on "luck" which always in the house's favor.

[vir-jin]

I recently was thinking about when a culture starts getting criminal. I came to the point that the base is having a long and heavy culture where everything is already decided by rules. This is too static. You have to find your way around it by acting against the rules. the more static it is the more tricky it gets until we get to the point where the criminality takes over the government, means the streets are not safe in the sense of our ancestors anymore. In Japan we have yakusa, in Italy we have the mafia. More interesting, the world criminality based on terrorism.
cheating in buisness that is close to criminality ( pachinko lets them loose their money in a game that gives them the'possibility' to earn money, what is obvioulsly a big fat lie) is a way to get around those criminal rules and therefore should be supported and not punished. It's one of the good guys! Koizumi should support that in a campaign!