28. Why is the Japanese mafia called the Yakuza?
A yakuza member hands with traditional tattoos (Lorenzo Moscia/archivolatino/Redux)
The Japanese mafia’s name, the Yakuza, is a corruption of the pronunciation of the numbers ‘8,9,3’ (‘yattsu, ku, san’) in Japanese.
It originates from a card game called Oichokabu, in which a player’s score is decided by adding the scores of the cards and using only the smallest digit.
Namely, 8+9 +3=20=0 points. Thus, ‘8-9-3’ or ‘yattsu, ku, san’ – that is to say Yakuza – means ‘no points’.
Soon enough it became synonymous with ‘useless’, and later to useless people or gambling people. Sure enough, to this day the Yakuza is heavily involved in gambling.
Bonus fact: the missing pinkie is self-induced. It is the Yakuza member’s way to apologize to his boss for not completing a task.