Pachinko
Not me, but a friend who lived out in Japan at the same time as me, decided to go to a pachinko parlour with some of her mates. A panchinko parlour is filled with machines that are kind of a cross between a fruit machine and a pinball machine and they are filled with ball bearings.

Despite having no idea what she was doing and also having consumed one too many Asahi beers, she managed to win about £700 on a pachinko machine and stumbled haphazardly over to the prize counter to exchange her loot.

Given that it is illegal to give out cash prizes in Japan what they do instead is give you a random gift which you then take outside to the carpark where some friendly local yakuza gangsters who run the parlours will then swap your crappy gift for real yen.

Under the jealous eyes of the other pachinko players she handed over her overflowing plastic container of ball bearings and waited expectantly for whatever might appear. She was very excited when the woman from behind the counter gave her a box of chocolates - fantastic, she thought, and started greedily eating all of them, the alchol from earlier making her very hungry indeed. Given that it was quite a small box of chocolate, each suculent bit was costing her about £50.

Luckily, instead of ending up being the most expensive crappy box of chocolates ever, one of the friendly yakuza guys shooed her out into the carpark and gave her the money anyway. They let her keep the rest of the choccies (there was only a couple left by then anyway) and even gave her another box because they found her so amusing. Result!
( hanabanana, Fri 23 Jun 2006, 12:48, Reply)