Police Find Increasing Number of Online Casino Users Gambling Overseas in 2024; Increase of 2.7 Times From 2023

Police across the nation found 143 people who accessed and gambled on overseas online casinos from January to November last year on a preliminary basis, 2.7 times higher than the previous year, according to the National Police Agency.

The authorities discovered these online casino users by analyzing accounts used to pay for gambling. It is estimated that there could be over 3 million people in Japan who access online casinos. Under such circumstances, experts point out that it is necessary to consider regulating access to online casinos.

Gambling from Japan is illegal

According to the NPA, 62 people were found to have gambled on online casinos in 2019, the largest annual number until 2024, and the figure has remained at around 50 in recent years. However, the number of online casino users found by police surged to 143 as of the end of November last year.

Many are individuals who used their smartphones to gamble online, and about 90% of the 143 people used online casinos that have no physical locations.

A Tokyo-based international casino research institute conducted a survey on 6,000 men and women in Japan in August and September and found that 2.8% of the respondents had gambled using online casinos in the past 12 months, which means that about 3.46 million people are estimated to have gambled online.

There are many online casinos overseas, with some introducing themselves as “Safe and secure” and “We offer 24-hour Japanese language support.” However, even if gambling is legal overseas, doing so from Japan is illegal.

The police have been trying to identify online casino users. In November, the Metropolitan Police Department sent papers on 10 people to the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors’ Office on suspicion of gambling, believing that these people had been engaged in sports gambling on a website operated by a company on the Caribbean island of Curacao.

The suspects are in their 20s to 60s and include a housewife, a company executive, a certified accountant and a fire department official. They are quoted by police as saying, “I gambled to ease my stress,” or “I heard I would be able to make money.” All of them lost money while gambling, and one lost ¥30 million, according to the police.

Payment agencies aid betting

The police have been identifying an increasing number of online casino users because they have found payment agency service operators. These service operators gain fees such as by exchanging yen and crypto assets with points used in online casinos on behalf of online casino operators.

The MPD decided that these services constitute the act of aiding gambling activities and arrested two operators in September 2023. The MPD found that about ¥20 billion had been transferred from about 42,000 customers to bank accounts related to these operators over a five-month period. The police then utilized a special tool to analyze crypto-asset accounts used to purchase points for gambling and identified about 130 people who gambled online, leading to the surge in the number of online casino users found by police last year.

The prefectural police in Chiba and Hyogo in 2024 also found payment agency service operators and their customers. “It is a huge mistake to think that they can evade the police because the casino sites are operated overseas or because they use crypto assets,” a senior police official said.

Measures needed urgently

According to a survey conducted in fiscal 2023 by the National Hospital Organization Kurihama Medical and Addiction Center, 19.9% of people who are suspected to be gambling addicts said they gambled online more often than before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Online casinos allow people to gamble as if they were playing video games and bet money at a faster pace, which triggers gambling addiction more easily,” said Yoichi Torihata, a professor emeritus at Shizuoka University who is familiar with casino-related issues. “Since the less-regulated Japanese market is targeted by overseas online casinos, the government needs to accelerate countermeasures, including blocking measures to prevent access to online casinos.”