Pachinko and Horse Racing, but Not Stocks? 5ch Weighs In: ‘Poor People Should Stick to Poor People’s Gambling’

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A simple question — “Why don’t people who play pachinko and bet on horse races just invest in stocks instead?” — touched off a heated debate between the investing camp and the gambling camp on 5ch’s Nandemo Jikkyo G (“Live News”) board. Some pushed stocks, pointing to the Nikkei’s 26% and 31% annual gains and the gulf between pachinko’s roughly 20% house cut and the near-zero fees of online brokerages. Others shot back with lines like “poor people should stick to poor people’s gambling” and “I’m not trying to climb the social ladder,” revealing that for them gambling was never about profit but the thrill of play itself — leaving the two sides talking past each other.

1Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:31:51.61ID:ID:a/n853bz0
Are you stupid?
Why would you deliberately do something with such a low expected value?
7Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:33:29.91ID:84qiURui0
Found the genius who thinks investing and gambling are the same thing.
Anyone with real money obviously already invests, this comes up every single time.
10Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:34:17.12ID:a/n853bz0
>>7
Investing is gambling too, dude.
Only the expected value is different.
11Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:34:38.17ID:RKcVwWrb0
Because hitting a 1.1x payout on a place bet (fukushō, betting a horse to finish top 3) is faster than waiting for a stock to climb 10%.
16Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:36:03.62ID:a/n853bz0
>>11
Even large-cap stocks have been popping 10% easily lately.
Miss a place bet and your ticket's worthless paper.
With stocks, even if you're wrong, waiting it out can turn things around into a profit.
13Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:34:48.99ID:p7pdGaYN0
Well, obviously — don't knock it, be grateful for the government's tax revenue.
17Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:38:06.24ID:a/n853bz0
>>13
So idiots end up paying both the "pachinko tax" and an "inflation tax" for not investing in stocks?
14Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:35:05.70ID:TMnii2V60
If you try to win and lose at the same rate you would gambling,
stocks actually leave you worse off than horse racing or pachinko.
20Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:38:30.34ID:a/n853bz0
>>14
Huh? No they don't.
19Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:38:14.50ID:XW84nbJU0
A real gambler bets on the shot at turning 10,000 yen into 15x in two minutes, even if that same 10,000 yen is guaranteed to double in a year some other way. Wimps (the poster used a crude anti-gay slur) can go do stocks instead.
26Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:41:36.14ID:a/n853bz0
>>19
Day-trade on full margin and stocks can multiply many times over in one shot too, you know.
21Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:38:53.17ID:wvvYy5mtM
The fun is picking it yourself, playing it yourself, and feeling the win or the loss.
That's just a different thing from stocks.
28Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:42:13.15ID:a/n853bz0
>>21
You can pick your own individual stocks too, though.
32Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:43:39.01ID:TMnii2V60
>>20
Stocks' edge basically comes down to the fact that share prices keep going up over the long run.
In pachinko terms, it's like the payout rate being set above 4 yen per ball —
actually sitting there racking up balls is a whole separate issue.
39Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:47:44.56ID:a/n853bz0
>>32
For starters, the house cut is totally different.
Pachinko parlors skim about 20%, so bet 100 yen and you only get 80 back on average.

With stocks, online brokerages barely charge fees, so the "house" takes almost nothing.
38Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:46:30.22ID:CQMF9W4B0
Because horse racing's annual return rate is positive.
45Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:50:32.14ID:a/n853bz0
>>38
Of course it's positive.
The Nikkei was up 26% last year and 31% this year.
Just buying a boring old ETF gets you gains like that.
People who bought Kioxia made dozens of times their money.
88Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 22:23:10.52ID:CQMF9W4B0
>>45
The return rate on the spring G1 races is over 1000%, though.
47Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:51:22.95ID:a/n853bz0
>>44
What, got a problem with that?
Then bring an actual counterargument.
49Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:53:20.25ID:TMnii2V60
>>47
Well sure, if you want to believe stocks aren't skimming a cut off you, go right ahead.
They work hard to make you think that.
48Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:52:34.97ID:rMGRI8bu0
With horse racing you never know how much you could lose.
With pachinko, even on a brutal day you're only out a bit over 100,000 yen, so it's still playable.
50Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:53:42.64ID:a/n853bz0
>>48
You already know this — neither horse racing nor stocks can cost you more than what you staked.
52Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:55:17.21ID:XAnTvxO00
"Expected value" lol.
Spoken like someone who's never actually traded stocks (a classic "airprei," 5ch slang for talking big about something you've never actually done).
56Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:56:18.31ID:9auq5Y7N0
>>52
The only gambling where you can actually pin down a fixed number like that is slots, since there's no chaos factor involved.
57Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:56:50.16ID:a/n853bz0
>>52
Expected value is the basic foundation of every kind of gambling.
Not understanding that just makes you an idiot and easy prey 🦆
54Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:55:38.95ID:TMnii2V60
Anyway, there's no point fighting at the same table as filthy-rich people you can't even fathom.
Poor people should just stick to poor people's gambling.
Acting rich doesn't make you rich.
61Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:58:00.39ID:a/n853bz0
>>54
Stocks actually give poor people a better shot at climbing up in the world — so why go out of your way to play pachinko or bet on horses instead?
64Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:58:52.16ID:TMnii2V60
>>61
I'm not climbing anywhere.
That was never the goal to begin with.
67Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 22:00:36.54ID:4g9F06aa0
>>61
Even with stocks you're not climbing up in the world.
55Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:55:47.31ID:+G4YMtgB0
The whole process is way too much of a hassle.
You can't just pop in and be done in two minutes like at the pachinko parlor.
63Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:58:41.83ID:a/n853bz0
>>55
Once you've got an account set up, buying and selling is easy.
58Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:57:02.63ID:+G4YMtgB0
If there were a place like a pachinko parlor or a betting shop where I could just walk in with cash, buy some stock, see the result, and walk right back out, I'd go every single day.
68Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 22:00:51.59ID:a/n853bz0
>>58
With stocks you don't even need to go anywhere — you can do it from home, or honestly anywhere, anytime, right on your phone.
59Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:57:06.46ID:70ICU/QO0
Looks to me like you're just riding high because the market happens to be good right now.
No different from a pachinko addict (pachinkasu, mocking slang for pachinko junkies) celebrating after hitting a lucky trigger.
65Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 21:59:44.05ID:a/n853bz0
>>59
Nope.
This is a major bull run that's going to last for decades.
Japan has entered an era of inflation, so skip stocks and you'll just get hit with an inflation tax.
69Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 22:01:24.40ID:ajf8x7eO0
Probably because just watching a number go up and down isn't any fun.
71Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 22:02:42.70ID:a/n853bz0
>>69
It's incredibly fun, actually.
The dopamine hits are insane.
75Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 22:05:05.05ID:9auq5Y7N0
>>69
Maybe someone should build a dedicated trading app with flashy pachinko-style animations for people like that.
90Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 22:24:07.82ID:+HQsbeMbM
You shouldn't go around recommending investing to people.
Let's just sit back and enjoy watching what happens to the people who stubbornly refuse to touch stocks.
92Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 22:27:53.62ID:a/n853bz0
>>90
But isn't investing something the government itself recommends?
97Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 22:31:16.09ID:4g9F06aa0
>>92
That's beside the point.

A true gambler owns everything that happens to them.
98Anonymous2026/08/22(土) 22:31:38.72ID:+HQsbeMbM
>>92
If you don't invest, you're finished.
Which is exactly why it's more fun not to recommend it.

*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “Why don’t people who play pachinko and bet on horse races just invest in stocks?.”

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