TheCIAGlowsInTheDark
An Onion Among Onions
Welper's statement of how Asian nations don't allow their citizens to gamble isn't even accurate either.
While it's true that traditional forms of Western-styled gambling are banned in many East Asian countries (card games like Poker or Blackjack, traditional slot machines, roulette, craps, sports betting, etc are either heavily restricted or fully banned in the East) this doesn't mean that gambling in of itself is fully banned in the East.
Lotteries to win money and pseudo-casinos are still pretty prevalent in East Asia and to my knowledge China does have their own version of Las Vegas too.
In Japan, Pachinko is very popular in the Land of the Rising Sun where while most forms of gambling are banned; Pachinko machines serve as a loophole around the gambling restrictions in Japan where people can hit the Pachinko machines to win real money. Lotteries are also very popular in Japan too where people can buy a ticket in the hopes to win real money or win tickets to a music concert or win tickets for a vacation.
With countries like Taiwan, Malaysia, and South Korea; while those countries still have staunch restrictions on gambling, they do have casinos that are legal but still have to work under restrictions or lotteries for their citizens for a chance to win money (Taiwan has lotteries, Malaysia does have one casino to my knowledge geared towards foreigners, and South Korea has lotteries and to their credit sports betting is legal there to my knowledge).
But the East Asian country that is far more willing to allow gambling than their neighbors is China. While gambling is banned for the rest of the Chinese mainland, the city of Macau is pretty much China's version of Las Vegas and this is the only part of China where most forms of gambling are allowed (including casinos with slot machines and card games). The irony here is that a communist nation tolerates gambling more than their neighbors.
So while most forms of Western-styled gambling is heavily restricted in many East Asian countries, gambling still exists in some forms (like lotteries or pseudo-slot machines like Pachinko).
The Asians like to win money too and not care that the house always wins anyway.
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