Online Oripa in Japan: Gambling Law, Premiums Rules and Payment Regulation

Hello! I am Noriaki Asato, Representative Attorney at Legal Agent.

An online "oripa" service works like this: a user buys points, opens a pack on screen and instantly sees which trading card they have won. The user can request shipment of the physical card, or decline it and convert the card into site points to open the next pack. Oripa, short for "original pack", refers to packs that card shops assemble themselves from second-hand cards and sell sight-unseen by the draw.

No Japanese statute regulates oripa by name. Its legality therefore depends on applying existing statutes to the actual design of the service, and the central question is whether the scheme constitutes a gambling offence under the Penal Code.

The central issue: the gambling offence (Article 185 of the Penal Code)

Article 185 of the Penal Code punishes gambling with a fine of up to JPY 500,000, with a proviso excluding wagers of items of momentary amusement. The operator faces the heavier offence of running a gambling operation for profit under Article 186(2), which carries imprisonment of three months to five years.

The Code does not define gambling, but it is understood as contesting the gain or loss of property on the outcome of chance. Chance means that the parties cannot foresee or control the outcome with certainty, and the involvement of skill does not negate it. "Contesting gain or loss" is understood to require that both sides bear a risk of losing property. Where only one side bears that risk, there is no contest, and this element of mutual risk is what separates a lawful random sale from gambling.

The lottery offence (Article 187)

Article 187 punishes the sale of lottery tickets, understood as collecting money from purchasers and distributing property unequally among them by chance, with the purchasers definitively losing the price they paid. Public lotteries in Japan are lawful only because a special statute authorises them.

Applying the offences to online oripa

In the typical design, many draws contain cards worth less than the price of the draw. A purchaser who draws such a card loses the difference, and that loss funds the jackpot cards. The purchaser therefore bears a risk of losing property, which pushes the scheme towards a gambling characterisation. The common defence that "every draw wins some card" does not answer this point, because a card worth less than the price still leaves the purchaser out of pocket. Features that let users convert winnings back into draw points, operator buy-backs of winning cards and cash-out routes through partners all strengthen the gambling characterisation, since they show that users are pursuing monetary value rather than the cards themselves. A scheme that adds jackpot cards as revenue grows, or times when winners appear, also invites the lottery analysis, because it looks like collection and redistribution rather than the sale of a fixed inventory.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's Sports DX Report (December 2022) offers the closest official guidance. It suggests that random NFT pack sales arguably fall outside the gambling offence where the economic value of each item is clearly ascertainable, no pack is worth less than its sale price, and the seller does not buy items back below the sale price.

Working back from that analysis, three designs stay on the lawful side. First, a full value-guarantee model in which every draw contains cards whose verifiable market value meets or exceeds the price, with no buy-back or point-conversion features. Second, a fixed-product model that sells a determinate product worth the price and funds any random bonus separately, accepting that the bonus is then a regulated premium. Third, free draws genuinely decoupled from purchases. In every model, records of the sealed inventory, valuations and allocation are what make legality provable afterwards. If advertised jackpot cards never existed, the issue is no longer gambling but fraud under Article 246.

Premiums and representations

Under the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations, the cards inside an oripa are the subject of the transaction itself, not "premiums", following the Consumer Affairs Agency's guidance on paid gacha. Benefits provided in addition to the transaction, such as last-one prizes or referral rewards, are premiums subject to value caps, and any scheme rewarding users for collecting a specified combination of different cards is banned outright as a card-combination ("complete gacha") scheme.

Representations are the larger practical risk. Claimed return rates, remaining jackpot counts and grading claims must match reality and be supported by retained evidence, and quality claims are subject to the substantiation regime, under which unsupported claims are deemed misleading. Sponsored influencer content must be identifiable as advertising under the stealth-marketing designation in force since October 2023, and the statute also requires an internal system for managing representations.

Secondhand dealer licensing and e-commerce rules

Buying and reselling second-hand cards requires a secondhand dealer permit from the prefectural Public Safety Commission. Online buy-backs from users trigger identity-verification duties for non-face-to-face transactions; the police make clear that simply receiving a copy of a driver's licence is not sufficient.

As distance sales, oripa sites must also make the statutory disclosures under the Specified Commercial Transactions Act and, since 2022, present the final confirmation screen with quantity, price, payment, delivery and cancellation terms; misleading order screens give consumers a right of rescission. Unless a return policy is properly displayed in the advertisement and on the order screen, consumers may return goods within eight days of delivery.

Prepaid points under the Payment Services Act

Paid site points are typically prepaid payment instruments. Once the unused balance exceeds JPY 10 million on a reference date (31 March or 30 September), the issuer must notify the authorities and deposit at least half of the balance as security. Refunds of prepaid value are prohibited in principle, and offering cash-out of points collides with that prohibition and risks deposit-taking and funds-transfer regulation. Paid and free points must be managed separately; if they cannot be distinguished, the whole balance is treated as regulated. Common issues with in-game currency are covered in Game Payments and Gacha.

Minors and terms of use

Contracts made by minors without parental consent can be rescinded under Article 5 of the Civil Code, and a mere "I am an adult" checkbox does not amount to the fraudulent inducement that blocks rescission under Article 21. Operators should rely on screen design and purchase limits rather than deemed-consent clauses. Blanket liability exclusions in terms of use are void under the Consumer Contract Act, as are so-called salvage clauses that fail to state that a liability cap applies only to ordinary negligence.

Conclusion

As of August 2026 there are no published prosecutions of online oripa operators or premiums-law orders against them, but that reflects an absence of decided cases, not a finding of legality. An industry association was formed in November 2025 and a Diet members' caucus on trading cards in July 2026, so written rules may follow. Operators that keep verifiable records of inventory, valuations and draw allocations will be in a far stronger position than those relying on terms-of-use language alone.

LegalAgent advises on random-sale schemes across gambling-law assessment, secondhand dealer licensing, prepaid payment instruments, terms of use and advertising review.