Stake: a Japanese affiliate locked up
•
7 Jun 2025 •
Reading time: 3 minutes On 30 May 2025, the Tokyo Metropolitan Police arrested Makoto Chomabayashi, a 38-year-old man from Iwaki in Fukushima prefecture. He is suspected of betting around 28 billion yen (around €172 million) on the online gambling site Stake between August 2022 and April 2024. The authorities claim that he mainly played baccarat. Chomabayashi has admitted the facts.
Colossal losses and a lucrative affiliation business
Despite the astronomical sums involved, Chomabayashi is said to have lost only 40 million yen (around €245,000). Alongside his gambling activities, he acted as an affiliate for the Stake casino. Under the pseudonym ‘Meikyo Shisui’ (meaning ‘clear and serene mind’), he shared screenshots of his winnings on the X platform (formerly Twitter), attracting more than 100 users to the site. Since April 2023, he has reportedly received around 7 million yen (around €40,000) in affiliate commissions.
‘News reports said there were hundreds of thousands of players in Japan, so I thought I was only the tip of the iceberg.’
Investigators believe that his motives went beyond simple financial gain. Chomabayashi is said to have sought social recognition through the praise he received online for his posted winnings.
A growing phenomenon despite illegality
Chomabayashi’s case highlights the growing scale of illegal online gambling in Japan. According to an investigation by the National Police Agency (NPA) completed at the end of 2024, some 3.37 million Japanese people are believed to have gambled on foreign online platforms, with 1.97 million active users collectively betting around 1,200 billion yen (€7 billion) a year.
This proliferation is facilitated by the use of VPNs and other privacy tools, making it difficult for the authorities to trace.
A four-pronged government response
In response to this growing threat, a new law, expected at the current session of the Diet, aims to ban the operation and advertising of online casinos, including on social networks, and to mandate public awareness campaigns. The Japanese government has unveiled a four-pronged strategy to combat illegal online gambling:
- Crackdown on payment services: Increased monitoring of suspicious transactions and collaboration with financial institutions to block payment channels linked to illegal gambling.
- Targeting affiliates: Criminal prosecution of individuals and companies promoting illegal online casinos, monitoring of social platforms and blocking of affiliate sites.
- Awareness campaigns: Allocation of 500 million yen to inform the public about the illegality of online gambling and the associated risks, including addiction and financial problems.
- Cooperation with businesses: Encouragement of businesses to ban advertising for online casinos and to refuse partnerships with entities linked to illegal gambling.
This legislation seeks to reduce illegal gambling and the associated social damage, including addiction, particularly among young people.
Worrying social implications
The surge in illegal online gambling has significant social implications. The Society Concerned about Gambling Addiction in Tokyo reports an 11-fold increase in referrals for gambling addiction between 2019 and 2024, with 91 cases reported in 2024.In addition, 30% of members surveyed reported that relatives addicted to online gambling had become involved in criminal activity. 24-hour accessibility via smartphones is identified as a key factor in this increase.