JIN-368 -- Japan's Lotto Players Dream On

J@pan Inc Magazine Presents:

T H E J @ P A N I N C N E W S L E T T E R

Commentary on the Week's Business, Technology and Cultural News
========================================================
Issue No. 368

Tuesday May 16, 2006 TOKYO

Subscribe for FREE:J@pan Inc Magazine Presents:

T H E J @ P A N I N C N E W S L E T T E R

Commentary on the Week's Business, Technology and Cultural News
========================================================
Issue No. 368

Tuesday May 16, 2006 TOKYO

Subscribe for FREE:
http://www.japaninc.com/newsletters/index.html?list=jin

CONTENTS

@@ VIEWPOINT: Japan's Lotto Players Dream On

================= ICA Event - May 18 =======================

Speakers: Hideki Shimizu & Tetsuya Nakamura, Mobile Solution
Product Development Division, KDDI Topic: Mobilizing
your Enterprise - Successful Case Studies

Details: Complete event details at http://www.icajapan.jp/ (RSVP Required)
Date: Thursday, May 18, 2006
Time: 6:30 Doors open, buffet dinner included
Cost: 3,000 yen (members), 5,500 yen (non-members),
Open to all - Location is Foreign Correspondents' Club
http://www.fccj.or.jp/static/aboutus/map.php

================ Start a Company in Japan ===================

Entrepreneur's Handbook Seminar 20th of May, 2006

If you have been considering setting up your own company,
find out what it takes to make it successful. Terrie Lloyd,
founder of over 13 start-up companies in Japan, will be
giving an English-language seminar and Q&A on starting up
a company in Japan. This is an ideal opportunity to find
out what is involved, and to ask specific questions that
are not normally answered in business books. All materials
are in English and are Japan-focused.

For more details: http://japaninc.com/handbook_seminar3/
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@@ VIEWPOINT: Japan's Lotto Players Dream On

I've never bought a lottery ticket, leastways for myself. I have bought tickets for
my wife, as Christmas presents at her request. I was glad to oblige; it spared my
having to wade through crowded department store ailes on a quest for the holy
grail--something that would actually please her.

I've never bought a lottery ticket because the odds render the act of purchase
equivalent to dropping money in the sewer. Better give it to the homeless who
panhandle at the station. I've always regarded the lottery as an index of a pervasive
unhappiness. People who've found their vocation don't need the putative liberation
of a winning number.

Many Japanese still thirst for the freedom from quotidian drudgery that a winning
ticket is supposed to buy.

Lump all the different kinds of lotteries together and there are as many as 2,865
winning tickets worth 10 million yen or more. That works out to a big winner every
3 hours and three minutes.

"The 2004 White Paper on Lottery Millionaires" (no jocular invention; it exists) reports
that big winners chose the lottery kiosk with care. Just where did they buy their
winning tickets?

Mizuho Bank, which sells many lottery tickets at the counter or via ATMs, says
there's no point in asking which sales venues offer the best odds, because the
chances of winning are the same wherever you buy a ticket. That is true,
statistically. But Japanese lotto players are romantics and dreamers. That's why
municipalities give lotteries names like "Treasure," "Dream," and "Jumbo."

The White Paper includes a survey of lotto ticket buyers. The most frequent
criterion for choosing a kiosk is a history of sales of big winning tickets. Other
criteria include "booth atmosphere," "day of purchase," and "booth direction."
The last suggests work for feng shui geomancers.

Lotto players keep their ear to the ground. Window No. 1 at the Chance Center,
among the many retailers that make up the Nishi-Ginza Department Store, in
Tokyo, is rumored to sell a high proportion of winning tickets. Be prepared to stand
in line longer than an hour to purchase a ticket at the fabled window, or as long as two
hours for a stab at winning the "Year-End Jumbo Lottery," even while no one waits
at other windows.

What do the lucky winners do with their windfalls? According to a Mizuho Bank
survey of big lottery winners, 42.4% saved the money and 25.9% used it to repay loans.

Of course, not all lottery winners are this conservative in their use of the money. That's
why all big money winners receive a brochure entitled "A Book to Be Read From Now:
How to Avoid Being Flustered by Sudden Fortune." The brochure offers such advice
as "Acquaint yourself with who you are."

That my wife asks me for a book of lottery tickets as a gift would suggest dissatisfaction
with our circumstances. Certainly writing a give-away newsletter is no path to riches.
Look for me outside Window No. 1 at the Chance Center.

-- Burritt Sabin

========================================================
== Entrepreneur Association of Tokyo - June 6th - 3 Year Anniversary Panel Discussion ==

Interested in expanding your business into the worlds fastest growing economy?
If so, than you are in luck because EA-Tokyo will be gathering a panel of
experts on doing business in China for their 3 year anniversary panel discussion.
The panelists will be addressing some common questions such as how to get started
and the major cultural and bureaucratic issues to consider when entering China.

Date/Time: Tuesday, June 6th 7:00 pm
Location: City Club of Tokyo - Maple Room (Canadian Embassy Complex)
Language: English
Website: http://www.ea-tokyo.com
Email: info@ea-tokyo.com
========================================================
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EDITOR
Written and edited by Burritt Sabin (editors2@japaninc.com)

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