From our other sites
The story
A thread appeared on a 5ch livestream board where the original poster, who had been trying to make a living playing pachislot, revealed that “my total earnings this year came to ¥160,000 — that works out to about ¥190 an hour.” Despite grinding long hours at it as his main job, he’d been steadily eating into his savings, and the conversation turned toward switching to other work like Uber. The thread touched on the difference between “equal-exchange” and “non-equal-exchange” halls (payout-rate systems that affect how easy machines are to beat), machine selection, and discomfort with how streamers portray their high-stakes betting — all underscoring just how hard it is to actually make a living as a pro player.
What people said
Guess I'll just start driving for Uber tomorrow 😭
Probably because it's a "4-or-6, equal-exchange" hall — feels like it's always mid-tier settings (the hall's internal payout config)
Well if you're talking like that, no wonder your hourly rate is ¥190
If you actually watch, you'll see Ena machines don't pay out easily either
Everyone already knows the basic tricks now, so at any good hall anyone can snap up the good machines instantly these days
This is with 4-or-6 equal-exchange, and it's still like this
I don't play them myself, but the hall that runs them seems stable and I'm up a decent amount there
Ururimi's running pretty positive but it's way too volatile, and you can't get a seat that often anyway
Not many halls even have it
Umineko, well, you just can't get a seat at all
It's kind of embarrassing so I only hit the same hall once a week
There are only two halls around here that even have Ururimi
isn't something to scoff at
Though it depends on how many hours a day you're putting in
This is my main job
My savings are running out and I'm starting to think "I can't do this anymore"
Or swallow your pride and camp out on Oki-Doki machines (an easy, beginner-friendly slot series)
Yeah, I really wasn't cut out for it
My reel-timing is decent, but my push-pull decisions are genuinely terrible
Probably better to just skip the push-pull calls entirely and grind until closing
Back in my day I could average winning ¥1,000,000 a month
So jealous 😢
Yeah, your savings shrink right before your eyes lol
It's just a question of when you start panicking lol
I started with ¥500,000 in savings and I'm nine years in now — somehow it's working out
You'd be better off doing gig work through Timee (a same-day part-time job app)
If I were doing Timee I'd just do Uber instead
Dealing with coworkers sounds like a pain
7 days a week at 4 hours a day
6 days a week at 4.8 hours a day
5 days a week at 5.8 hours a day
If you're playing skill-based machines
you need something like 6 days a week at 10 hours a day
Mine's 6 days a week, 5 hours
But here's the thing… whenever I play long hours I tend to lose overall
If I'm up, it gets swallowed back and I keep feeding in more; if I'm down, there's no comeback, I just sink straight to the bottom
And on top of that he seems to be doing it totally solo without a crew, so of course he can't win
I just play it as "done unless a guaranteed-bonus symbol hits once my banked coins run out," and before I know it I've got 30,000 coins
This is what my Shin Hanabi looks like, though?
I'm up over ¥1,000,000 on Versus, but Shin Hanabi alone just never feels like it's going to hit
Your Final-round numbers are trash lol
Your game count is way too low
If you just stubbornly grind out 7,000-8,000 games, that's a number you'd hit in about a month
At the end of the day, slots are just brutal torture without a good setting
If you're chasing good settings then non-equal-exchange makes sense, but then there's the lining up and the lottery draws to deal with
Even Ena machines run non-equal-exchange
The payout base is different
Well, at popular halls it just comes down to winning the lottery draw
Your miss rate must be brutal
How many frames of reel-timing accuracy does that need?
Yeah, I really am bad at Versus
Lately I'm hitting about 90%, but my missed coins are pushing close to 10,000
Shin Hanabi is all mental, though
Getting nothing but small bonuses just makes me irritated
You play machines where setting 6 has an 80%+ win rate
If setting 6 only gives you 60%, playing it solo is rough
I feel this hard
Watching streamers dump ¥100,000 in and go "teehee, confirmed good setting!"
just makes me wonder if they've lost their minds
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Regulatory changes in recent years have reined in pachislot payout potential, making it far harder than before to score big wins in a short time. Even within the thread, comments like “back in my day I could average winning ¥1,000,000 a month” point to how much tougher it’s become to make a living as a professional player. The discussion is dense with jargon — the difference between equal-exchange and non-equal-exchange halls, or how win-rate math factors into chasing good settings on AT machines — that can be hard for outsiders to follow. At its core, though, the thread is about the harsh reality of turning a passion into a job: some professional players keep grinding while eating into their savings, while others in the thread voice concern about that, making the risk of trying to earn a living through gambling the central issue.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Nanademo Jikkyou G) thread “Guy Finally Realizes He Can’t Make a Living Off Slots.”
Leave a Reply