You'll have heard this story before, in one form or another. "Mr. B," 66, is a pachinko addict. Hard core.

Until a certain fateful day 10 years ago there were no premonitory signs, unless straight-arrow conventionality to the point of dullness is one. Company man, family man, didn't smoke, didn't drink — didn't play pachinko either, until that fateful day when, stressed at work, on an impulse, he dropped into a parlor on the way home, figuring, "What the hell, I'll lose ¥2,000." He lost ¥100,000. How? He hardly knew; it just happened. Dazed, he left at last, a changed man.

His story is part of Shukan Asahi magazine's feature on gambling addiction. Technically, pachinko is not gambling. Gambling, with some exceptions, is illegal in Japan. Pachinko, classified as entertainment, skirts the ban. Clinicians who deal with this sort of thing, however, say pachinko addiction is indistinguishable from gambling addiction, whatever the legal shadings.