Bakuto

They were one of two forerunners (the other being tekiya, or peddlers) to modern Japanese organized crime syndicates called yakuza.

[1][2][3] Beginning around the 17th century, bakuto plied their trade in towns and highways in feudal Japan, playing traditional games such as hanafuda and dice.

[citation needed] During the Tokugawa shogunate, violent bakuto ikka (families) rose to power with the gambling spaces they ran, occasionally hired by local governments to gamble with laborers, winning back worker's earnings in exchange for a percentage.

[1][4] Bakuto were also responsible for introducing the tradition of yubitsume, or self-mutilation as a form of apology, to yakuza culture.

[citation needed] Fictional examples can be seen in the Zatoichi and iron fist film series, about a blind masseur who would often participate in bakuto-run gambling.