Poker and Pachinko

A row of pachinko machines and a poker table sit in the gaming corner of Kinugawa Kan, the machines lined along one wall and the green-felt poker table in the middle of the room. The pachinko machines are early-1980s units, the glass fronts mostly broken, the playing fields exposed. The metal trays beneath each machine that once caught the winning balls are empty. The poker table felt has water-damage stains running across most of its surface. A row of mounted chips and small plastic dishes for ashes sit along the table rail. The walls of the room are streaked with damp and mildew, the wallpaper peeling at the seams. The carpet is dark and water-marked.

Gaming rooms with pachinko and small-stakes card games were standard amenities at Japanese ryokans of Kinugawa Kan's grade through the 1970s and 1980s, run alongside the games room and the small in-house bar. They occupied guests between the bath and the meal. Kinugawa Kan opened in December 1942 and operated through the post-war ryokan boom and into the post-bubble decline. The hotel entered business suspension in June 1999 with debts of around 3 billion yen, the first major Kinugawa Onsen hotel to fall. The pachinko machines and the poker table stayed where they were after the building was sealed.