₱3M Windfall? January Gold Surge Sparks Hunt for Surprising Hidden Treasures

An unexpected treasure that can be sold at a high price

On January 29, gold reached a record high, surging to 30,248 yen per gram. Behind this are concerns over U.S. monetary policy and geopolitical risks. While there is demand for gold as a safe-haven asset to avoid risk, speculative trading has also pushed prices up, further accelerated by the weak yen.

It then crashed on February 2, and is currently fluctuating between around 26,000 and 28,000 yen, but demand for gold continues to rise each year, and in the long term, it is expected to keep increasing.

Amid this surge in gold prices, a certain treasure is drawing attention.

It is gold prizes that can be exchanged for winnings at pachislot parlors. Also called special prizes, they contain plates or chips embedded with pure gold, which can be converted into cash at prize exchange counters. The gold contained comes in three types by weight: 0.1g, 0.3g, and 1g (currently, the 1g option has been discontinued and replaced with 1g of silver). Most people immediately take them to exchange counters to cash them in, but they can also be taken home.

However, due to the rise in gold prices, bringing them to a precious metals shop now allows them to be exchanged for a higher price than at prize exchange counters. It may sound like a joke, but there are actually people making profits this way.

Precious metals shops also welcome customers bringing in gold prizes obtained from pachislot. When asked, stores that buy precious metals responded that there is no problem purchasing them.

Originally, the value of gold prizes and the cash exchange amount at prize counters are set to be equivalent. In the past, as gold prices rose, the value of gold prizes was also increased (raising the number of balls required to exchange for prizes). The price of a 1g prize, which was 2,500 yen until October 2007, rose to 9,000 yen by 2022, and as it approached the upper limit of 10,560 yen (tax included) that can be offered as a prize, purchases of the 1g prize have been gradually discontinued since around 2023.

Are there any legal risks?

Those who took notice of the rise in gold prices were not only ordinary pachislot enthusiasts, but also buyers with speculative motives. A, who says pachislot is his hobby, began collecting gold prizes from early 2023 and sold them all in January this year. “I was confident the price would definitely go up, so I was able to hold onto them patiently,” he said.

“In January 2025, Trump was inaugurated for his second term as president. Based on the trends from his previous term, I was sure the market would move. I knew his social media posts would cause volatility, so I speculated that this year will be turbulent. Stocks were an option, but I focused on gold. With global inflation and, above all, the ease of accumulating it in physical form, I decided to collect gold prizes from pachislot, something I had been considering for a while.”

Although he visited pachinko parlors every week, he stopped cashing out and instead accumulated prizes. He admitted there were many opportunities to sell, but the reason he held on was that pachinko was half a hobby.

“Since my hobby of pachinko just turned into saving gold, I felt like I didn’t need to sell right away. Especially between August and October last year, when gold prices surged by more than 3,000 yen and exceeded the 20,000 yen mark, I struggled with whether to sell. Around that time, pachinko parlors were raising prize values due to rising gold and silver prices. I didn’t expect it to reach 30,000 yen, but I was confident it would surpass 25,000 yen. In fact, that was around when I stopped collecting special prizes,” A said.

In addition to what he obtained at parlors, he collected over 100 gold prizes through online auctions and other means. Since 2023, pachinko halls stopped handling 1g gold prizes due to rising gold prices, so most transactions took place online. He successfully sold all the gold prizes within January, earning a profit of over 3 million yen.

Is there any issue with buying and selling gold prizes outside official prize exchange counters? This question was posed to attorney Daiki Tanaka of the Osaka branch of Atom Law Office.

“Once a prize is received, ownership of the item transfers to the recipient. In principle, you are free to sell your own property wherever you like.

However, even if special prizes given by pachinko halls are brand new when delivered from the manufacturer, under legal interpretation, they are treated as secondhand goods at the point they are handed over (transacted) from the hall to the customer, even if unused and uninspected.

Therefore, if someone repeatedly purchases and resells special prizes for profit, it may be considered operating as an unlicensed secondhand goods dealer, which carries the risk of criminal penalties under the Secondhand Articles Business Act. However, selling prizes you obtained through gameplay because gold prices have risen is simply disposing of personal assets and does not qualify as business activity.

In principle, selling special prizes at places other than exchange counters, such as precious metals shops, does not pose legal issues. However, depending on how the sales are conducted, there is a risk of violating the Secondhand Articles Business Act.”

Currently, 1g gold prizes are no longer available for exchange, so they cannot be obtained through winnings. The remaining gold prizes are 0.3g and 0.1g, but if gold prices continue to rise, profits may still be possible. Perhaps even the gold prizes you’ve forgotten and left lying around could turn out to be worth more than expected.

“FRIDAY Digital” welcomes tips and information from readers. Please submit via the information form below or through the official X account.

Information form: https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/tips
Official X: https://x.com/FRIDAY_twit