Gambling at pachinko, a kind of pinball game, is big business in Japan, but the biggest losers of late have been Mitsubishi Corp and Sumitomo Corp (yes, that name ag-ain): according to the New York Times, a plan to put an end to money laundering, tax evasion and other crimes associated with pach-inko misfired badly when a pre-paid magnetic card system designed by NTT Data Communications Systems Co and manufactured by affiliates of Mitsubishi and Sumitomo reported combined losses of almost $600m as a result of widespread forgery of the cards, whose electronic cash can be turned into hard cash with-out the need even to play pachinko.
