Online casino gambling in Japan is considered an illegal activity, which was never more apparent recently when a bust was made on an alleged cyber cafe permitting access to online casino games.  The cafe's staff claims the cafe did not violate any laws because the server for the online casino is located offshore.  However, despite their pleas to Japanese Police, two employees were arrested, along with two players who happened to be gambling online at the time of the raid.

No charges have been filed as of yet, although at least one more arrest is expected to be made.  The authorities involved in the raid have not released any further details on the case, except for the comments made by Japan's Ministry of Justice saying that this was the first time Japan has conducted a raid and made arrests as a result of online casino gambling.

For those who are not familiar with these "online casino cafes", they are similar to the gambling kiosks found in Europe.  They are small kiosk-sized buildings capable of giving high-speed internet access to specific casino game brands.  The most common - it seems - is actually made by one of the most well-known and respected online casino software manufacturers in the world - Playtech.  The casino brand is actually called Big Joy, which incidentally is powered by PlayTech.  These are some of the most advanced casino games available, which is no wonder why the Japanese seem to not be able to resist playing them.

What tipped off the Japanese officials and prompted the raid was a magazine article published a few months ago, citing this particular casino kiosk in the content of the article.  The inadvertently bad media coverage was intended to show how much income a business could make in the online casino industry, which is reportedly up to 50 million Yen in a single month.