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I know we were living in California, so I must have been about 12 when my parents bought me a Pachinko machine for my birthday. It looked a lot like the one above, one of the old style where you had to flip the lever to launch balls one at a time, trying to aim them so they bounce around pins and into payoff slots before thumping into the bottom of the play area. These days the balls are spit into the play area a hundred per minute and all the player can control is the speed of the shots. When we were in Japan a few weeks ago and passed by a parlor the sound was deafening whenever the doors opened but entirely cut off when they closed. I was amused to see an attendant for the bicycle parking lot.
This article gives a good overview of the game's down side (addiction, money loss, smokey atmosphere) and a bit about the up side (a zenlike trance). And here is an article from today's Japan Times about how the game is trying to change its image.