1. Gumball Machine Coin Slot
2. Old Gumball Machines
3. Coin Slot Gumball Machine Collectors

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A slug is a counterfeit coin that is used to make illegal purchases from a coin-operated device, such as a vending machine, payphone, parking meter, transit farebox, copy machine, coin laundry, gaming machine, or arcade game.^[1] By resembling various features of a genuine coin, including the weight, size, and shape, a slug is designed to trick the machine into accepting it as a real coin.

Losses caused to vendors by slug usage may be the result of the loss of sales, the absence of revenue following the distribution of merchandise that was obtained at the vendor's expense, or the loss of cash that is distributed by the machine for overpayment with slugs. Honest customers may also suffer losses when change returned for overpayment is in the form of a slug rather than a genuine coin.

Though slug usage is illegal in the United States and elsewhere,^[2] prosecution for slug usage is rare due to the low value of the theft and the difficulty in identifying the offender. Offenders in casinos are most likely to be prosecuted,^{[example needed]} as casinos have high levels of video surveillance and other security measures, and tend to be more proactive in enforcement.^{[citation needed]}

Use of other currencies[edit]

In some cases, a slug can be a genuine coin used in another country, with or without knowledge of the user. One example was the interchangeable use of Australian and New Zealand 5c, 10c and 20c pieces in both countries, from 1967 until 2006 (when New Zealand coins were redesigned). These coins were of the same material and size with near identical obverses, so could circulate outside their home country for some time, although the New Zealand coins were worth about 20% less, potentially resulting in a small gain (to those passing them) in Australia and a similar loss in New Zealand.

The Canadian quarter was also accepted by at least some US vending machines interchangeably with the US quarter until at least 2001. The usefulness of this to offenders varied greatly over time; during the 1970s and 1980s, the Canadian and US quarters were very similar in value.

The 10 Syrian pound coin is often used as a slug in Norway, as the shape and weight of this coin strongly resembles the 20 Norwegian krone coin. While not easy to find in Norway, the Syrian coins are still used in automated machines there with such frequency that Posten Norge, the Norwegian postal service, decided to close many of their coins-to-cash machines on February 18, 2006, with plans to develop a system able to differentiate between the two coins. In the summer of 2005, a Norwegian man was sentenced to 30 days, suspended, for having used Syrian coins in arcade machines in the municipality of Bærum.^[3]

In the UK, during the late 1990s some coin-operated slot machines would accept two 1-schilling coins glued together as if they were a £1 coin. The two original coins had a net value of under 10p at the current exchange rate. Coin detectors were soon reprogrammed to detect and reject the Austrian Schilling. Not long after it was possible to buy on the Internet a bag of 100 washers for under £20 that had been deliberately made to fool the machines into accepting them as £1 coins. Coin detectors were again reprogrammed to reject those slugs as well.

The Irish pound coin in use from 1990 to 2002 was the same size as the old pre-decimal penny, so vending machines had to be modified to differentiate them. Many machines simply had the pound slot disabled with a riveted plate.

Many coin-operated machines in Germany would accept the 1992, 1993 and 1995 stampings of the cupronickel Estonian 1 kroon coin as a German 1 mark coin. This was profitable for users of the Estonian coins as the kroon was pegged to the mark at a fixed rate of 8:1. All cupronickel 1 kroon coins were demonetized in May 1998 and the replacement aluminium-bronze Estonian 1 kroon coin was not interchangeable with the German mark in coin-operated machines.

The use of 100 South Korean won coins for the slug of 100 Japanese yen coins and cupronickel 20 sen (RM 0.20) pieces still commonly occurs, contributing to the conflict between Japanese and South Korean citizens.^[4] Similarly, until 2000, the South Korean 500 won coin could be modified to match the weight of the original 500 yen coin which was otherwise identical in diameter and composition, and thereby used to fool weight-sensitive vending machines.^[5][6]

From the fall of the Soviet Union to the monetary reform in 1998, the Russian Federation often issued a commemorative one-ruble coin that was identical in size and weight to a 5 Swiss franc coin. For this reason, there have been several instances of these (worthless) ruble coins being used on a large scale to defraud automated vending machines in Switzerland.^[7]

In the US, Connecticut Turnpike tokens had a value of 17.5 cents in the early 1980s, but due to having a similar design as New York City subway tokens worth 75 cents it became common for commuters to use the Turnpike tokens on the subway. The matter went unresolved for three years; users were not prosecuted, but when Connecticut discontinued tolls on the Turnpike, they agreed to redeem the roughly two million tokens from the MTA at face value.

In 1988, Thailand started minting a bimetallicten baht coin that is quite similar to the 2 Euro coin (first issue in 2002) in weight, size and appearance. Because it is worth substantially less, it has been used to fool cashiers and automated vending machines since the very first days of the 2 Euro coin circulation.^[8][9]

In the United Arab Emirates on August 2006, it became publicly known that the Philippines' ₱1 coin has the same size as the 1 United Arab Emirates dirham coin.^[10] With one dirham having a value nearly 14 times that of one Philippine peso, this has led to vending machine fraud in the United Arab Emirates. Similar frauds have also occurred in the US, as the 1-peso coin (worth about two U.S. cents) is roughly the same size as the quarter. Newer digital parking meters are not affected by the fraud, though most vending machines will accept them as quarters.

Composition comparison[edit]

Slugs are usually made from metals differing from those of real coins. While genuine US coinage is made from various alloys of copper, nickel, and zinc, Canadian coins are made mostly from steel with some copper and nickel, and euro coins are made from steel, nickel, and brass, slugs are frequently made from differing metals and alloys that are cheaper to obtain and mold, such as aluminum, tin, and lead.

Slugs may or may not have the face details of real coins. Some slugs that are made to match the face details may not be immediately recognizable as such to handlers, and may enter circulation.

Older, cheaper, and other low-tech machines that have fewer security measures are more likely to be defrauded by slug users. As an example, the full-mechanical mechanisms still used today in candy machines can be fooled by a cardboard coin. Many newer machines, especially those found in casinos, have additional detection that can identify more details of coins and detect those that do not resemble real coins.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^'Indiana Code Title 35. Criminal Law and Procedure §IC 35-43-5'(PDF). in.gov. Indiana General Assembly. Archived from the original(PDF) on July 21, 2008.
2. ^'8 U.S.C. § 486 – Uttering Coins of Gold, Silver or Other Metal: 'Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.' Note that 18 U.S.C. § 491 also addresses the creation of coins, but this particular code section prohibits the creation of coins or the use of similar metal objects for the purpose of inserting into parking meters, vending machines, and similar venues'. communitycurencies.org. U.S.C. Retrieved August 19, 2018.
3. ^Andersen, Øystein (February 18, 2006). 'Myntsvindlere herjer i Oslo'. Dagbladet (in Norwegian). DB Medialab AS. Retrieved March 8, 2008.
4. ^박상은 기자 [Park Sang Eun] (August 11, 2015). ''100엔 대신 100원 넣는 한국인 조심해요' 日 트윗 확산' ['Watch out for Koreans putting 100 won instead of 100 yen']. 국민일보 [Kukmin Ilbo] (in Korean). Retrieved July 13, 2017.
5. ^The Contemporary 'Won' Coins of the Republic of Korea (1966 – Present) Dokdo Research (dokdo-research.com). Retrieved on 2017-05-05.
6. ^Metropolis [Tokyo] Money Talks: Short Changed
7. ^'Mit alten Rubelmünzen Automaten am Zürcher HB geplündert' (in German). Swissinfo. 15 November 2006. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007.
8. ^admin. 'Europe has been talking about the 10 baht/2 Euro problem for some time | 2Bangkok.com'. 2bangkok.com. Retrieved 2018-12-31.
9. ^'Euro-Bargeld: Thai-Münzen überlisten Automaten'. Spiegel Online. 2001-11-26. Retrieved 2018-12-31.
10. ^Menon, Sunita (August 1, 2006). 'Hey presto! A Peso's as good as a Dirham'. gulfnews.com. Retrieved February 6, 2015.

Gumball Machine Coin Slot

Gashapon (ガシャポン), also called gachapon (ガチャポン), are a variety of vending machine-dispensed capsule toys popular in Japan and elsewhere. 'Gashapon' is onomatopoeic from the two sounds 'gasha' (or 'gacha') for the hand-cranking action of a toy-vending machine, and 'pon' for the toy capsule landing in the collection tray. 'Gashapon' is used for both the machines themselves and the toys obtained from them. Popular gashapon manufacturers include Tomy, which uses the shortened term gacha (ガチャ, gacha) for their capsule machines, and Kaiyodo. In the United States, 'Gashapon' is a registered trademark of the Bandai Company,^[1] and gashapon are referred to as blind box sets due to packaging requirements by retailers prior to official distribution of the actual gashapon machines. The gashapon model has been adapted digitally into numerous gacha video games such as mobile phone games and massively multiplayer online games (MMOs).

Description[edit]

Gashapon machines are similar to the coin-operated toy vending machines seen outside grocery stores and other retailers in other countries. While American coin-operated vending toys are usually cheap, low-quality products sold for a few quarters (US$1 or less), Japanese gashapon can cost anywhere from ¥100–500 (US$1–5) and are normally a much higher-quality product. They are often constructed from high-grade PVC plastic, and contain more molding detail and intricately painted features. Many gashapon are considered collector's items, with rare ones fetching extremely high prices in secondhand markets.^[2]

Gashapon toys are often licensed from popular characters in Japanese manga, video games or anime, or from the American entertainment industry. These highly detailed toys have found a large following among all generations in Japan, and the trend is filtering to the world, especially among adult collectors. It is not uncommon for sets marketed specifically for adults to feature risqué female figurines.^[3]

Old Gumball Machines

Virtually all gashapon are released in sets—each series will have a number of figures to collect. They are, by nature, a 'blind purchase'; people insert coins and hope to get the toy or figure they desire. Such an amusement element may become frustrating, as one risks obtaining the same item repeatedly.

Enthusiastic collectors will buy sets from gashapon stores in places such as Tokyo's Akihabara or Osaka's Nipponbashi (Den-Den Town). Depending on the store, the sets are usually cheaper than buying them randomly out of a machine.

Types[edit]

Blind-boxes[edit]

Coin Slot Gumball Machine Collectors

In recent years, the term gashapon has also come to refer to blind-box trading figures, which are essentially the same product sold randomly out of sealed packages instead of a machine.^[4]

Bottle cap figures[edit]

Another variety of gashapon is bottle cap figures. These small figures are mounted atop a plastic bottle cap, as might be found on a twenty-ounce soda bottle. They are sold both in machine capsules and blind boxes. The caps are not functional as they lack screw threads to secure them to the mouth of the bottle.

Video games[edit]

Mini games[edit]

Gashapon machines and their random payouts have inspired trinket-collection mini-games in many video games, most notably the Legend of Zelda series' similarly named 'Gasha Trees' in Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons, and, to a much higher extent, the random figurine payout in The Minish Cap. Gashapon have also appeared in some Mario games such as Mario Party 5 and well as Super Smash Bros. Melee where the player inserts a desired amount of coins and gets a trophy of a Nintendo-related nature in return. In both The Minish Cap and Super Smash Bros. Melee, the more the player spends in one go, the higher the chance of getting a new item in return. The bonus stage in Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is also gashapon-inspired. Yoshi's Crafted World also uses a gashapon machine for receiving costumes. Gudetama mobile game app Gudetama Tap features a variety of 'eggarapons' that dispense prizes for use in the larger game.

Gacha-expanded games[edit]

The gashapon concept is taken to the next level in SD Gundam Gashapon Wars, a game based on the SD Gundam television series, in which a gamer can activate extra characters from the game by buying certain series of SD Gundam gashapon toys in real life, namely SD Full Color STAGE:61, then use the password bundled with the toy to unlock the corresponding character in the video game. This is the same marketing tactic used by Kinder Surprise for the online surprises, except there is no online access involved

Gacha mechanic (Gacha games)[edit]

Many free-to-playMMOs and mobile games have mechanics inspired by gashapon, with randomly generated items of varying market values being acquired via microtransactions.

• In the NES game Mega Man 4 there is an enemy named Gachappon which is a gashapon vending machine modified to shoot energy shots and other kinds of projectiles. The Chip Trader from the Mega Man Battle Network series also functions similarly to gashapon machines. In addition, in Mega Man X: Command Mission, gashapon machines can be found in various places, and contain figures of various Mega Man characters.
• In the online massively multiplayer online gamePangYa the gashapon is a small Adobe Flash-powered mini-game in which users buy coins using real money, and in turn will give out items ranging from common, low-value items to rare, high-value items. There is also a consistent theme of gashapon items being released in sets, much like their real-life counterparts.
• The machines also appear in the Dreamcast game Shenmue, in which the main character Ryo Hazuki could spend yen to collect various figurines, including series of characters from the Virtua Fighter and Sonic the Hedgehog series of games as well as those of other known and lesser known Sega franchises (e.g. Fantasy Zone, Space Harrier, Hang-On).
• The GameCube game Gotcha Force is completely based on gashapon toys, pitting a massive variety of capsule toy-sized/themed aliens (called Borgs) against each other and the Galactic Emperor. As the player progresses, they earn new fighters that open from capsules, some of which require multiple parts to complete. Tying into the capsule toy theme even more are the variants that come in a range of styles from an alternate coloring to completely transparent to solid silver, gold, and black versions.
• They are also seen in Killer7, in which all of the figures are required to open a specific door.
• During the course of Resident Evil 4, the player can take part in a shooting range mini-game to unlock models of characters and enemies that are viewable in the Keys/Treasure inventory. There is one figure in each set that requires a higher score to unlock, which could be considered the 'rare' figures. This is also done in Resident Evil 5, which models of characters and enemies are unlocked for viewing by obtaining Completion Points.
• In Kingdom Hearts II, there is a rare type of Heartless called the 'Bulky Vendor,' based on a gashapon machine. Only appearing in certain areas of some worlds, its HP bar drops quickly and it jumps and moves faster as time goes on. The player is required to catch up with it and use a Reaction command, from 'Capsule Prize' up to 'Prime Capsule' to receive a capsule which explodes into orbs and an item prize. This is the only way (besides treasure chests) to gain the valuable Orichalcum item.
• The PSP game Work Time Fun consists of nothing but playing small mini-games for money to spend in gashapon machines. The machines deposit trinkets whose descriptions often poke fun at common gashapon trinkets.
• In the 1998 Yu-Gi-Oh! Toei Animation-produced anime series and the original manga, there are a series of episodes where players play a game called Capsule Monsters (Capmon for short) that involves the use of a gashapon machine to obtain the game pieces in which players used. Mokuba is seen playing this game the most, and is usually Yugi's enemy when it comes to playing this game. In a series later on that was released after the final episodes, there was a special movie that used these Capsule Monsters as a main part of the game. However, unlike the other Capsule Monsters, these ones were made out of bronze or gold, and were shot out from a capsule shooter to battle.^{[clarification needed]}
• In Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, there are gashapon machines in the stores such as the PokéMart in Pyrite Town that appear to have Poké Balls inside. Poké Balls are inspired by the capsules for gashapon machines.^{[citation needed]}
• Gashapon is also used in the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja series, the player earns yen by completing tasks, allowing them to put money in the machine; the more money the player puts in, the more likely they will get a gashapon. This system is used for getting miniature figurines, soundtracks, and collectible cards in-game.
• In Tales of Vesperia, on both the isle of Nam Cobanda and at the Yumanju hot springs there are gachapon machines which on rare occasion give out figurines for a sidequest.
• The Crank-a-Kai machine in Level 5's Yo-kai Watch series is a capsule machine, from which the main character indirectly receives the titular device. By inserting coins, the player can obtain capsules containing items or Yokai. In homage to this, Yo-kai Watch merchandise can be found in gashapon machines in Japan. There is also a Yo-kai who presides over the world's gashapon machines, including the Crank-a-Kai. It fights using capsules obtained within its own personal gashapon machine.

Gashapon-style item distribution has been adopted by many massively multiplayer online games, particularly those using the free-to-play model as a form of premium transaction made with real money, often granting access to items exclusive to that system. Examples are:

• In the MMO MapleStory, the gashapon is used as a gambling type machine, wherein players can purchase with real money tickets which, when used at the gashapon, will allow the player to receive a random item of random value.
• Similarly, in Mabinogi, the premium shop sells gashapon items that hold a variety of in-game items the player can use, such as dyes or armor as well as exclusively colored items and exclusive armor and clothing.
• The MMO Cosmic Break uses a gashapon machine called 'Garapon'. It has 5 rarities signified by the color of the capsule. Gold is the highest rarity in the game. However, the Garapon is highly controversial due to the pricing and extremely low chance of obtaining these items. It usually costs $3–5 per spin, as such, due to rarity issues, people have had to spend hundreds of dollars to just get one gold capsule.
• In Second Life, many stores run by users of the game have created their own gashapon-style devices called 'Gacha' that sell random objects in their shops.
• In Digimon Masters Online, an MMO created by Digitalic and now owned by Move Games, it uses Gachapon Coins on a vending machine that has a chance to give one of four colored capsules.

Gacha games[edit]

Games—often freemium—largely based on a gacha mechanism of monetization are referred to as gacha games.^[5][6] The gacha game model arose in the early 2010s, faring particularly well in Japan.^[5][6] Players may be given free or discounted gacha, but have to pay to get more.^[6] The games may feature different tiers of gacha pulls, which give different sets of rewards.^[5] Examples of gacha games are Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius,^[5]Fire Emblem Heroes,^[5][7]Puzzle & Dragons,^[5] and Dragon Collection.^[6] The mechanism has come under scrutiny for its similarity to gambling, and some countries require drop rates to be made public, or have banned certain practices (e.g., complete gacha).^[8]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^'GASHAPON Trademark of Bandai Co., Ltd. - Registration Number 2864782 – Serial Number 78158256 :: Justia Trademarks'. trademarks.justia.com.
2. ^'What is a gacha gacha?'. Gacha Gacha World. 2013-02-15. Retrieved 2013-02-24.
3. ^'Curiosities from Japan's porno shops'. demonbaby. 2005-08-22. Archived from the original on 2012-12-25. Retrieved 2013-01-16.
4. ^'Astro Toy with Rob Bricken: Dragonball x One Piece Dream Fusion'. Anime News Network. Retrieved 2013-01-16.
5. ^ ^abcdef''Fire Emblem Heroes' Is a Gacha Game'. Inverse. Retrieved 2017-05-23.
6. ^ ^abcd'Gacha: Explaining Japan's Top Money-Making Social Game Mechanism [Social Games] | Kantan Games, Inc. – CEO Blog By Dr. Serkan Toto'. Retrieved 2017-05-23.
7. ^'Nintendo's Mobile 'Fire Emblem' Is a 'Gacha' Game, Here's What That Means'. Waypoint. Retrieved 2017-05-23.
8. ^Feit, Daniel. 'Gacha Watch: Japan's Social Game Industry Shifts Gears After Government Crackdown'. WIRED. Retrieved 2017-05-23.

External links[edit]

• Gashapon at Bandai(in Japanese)