Prospects for legislation that would allow casinos in Japan have received yet another setback.
For years now, lawmakers in Japan have been toying with the passage of a so-called Integrated Resort promotion bill that would amend the constitution to allow, in principle, the construction of casino-driven integrated resorts. That would pave the way for a second more detailed bill, spelling out the law on gambling industry management.
At the end of last year the newspaper Hokkaido Shimbun quoted senior officials in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) saying there was “no chance” of the IR bill passing in the ordinary Diet session commencing at the beginning of this year, as there was “no time for it” before this summer’s elections in the legislature’s upper house.
Meanwhile, an executive in the LDP’s more conservative coalition partner Komeito Party said there was no reason to pass the bill before the elections. “The bill is frozen until the Autumn extraordinary Diet session,” he added.
Since discussion on reversing Japan’s casino law first emerged in 2002, therefore, doing so has been postponed yet again, and can only now take place late this year at the very earliest.
Tokyo’s selection as host of the 2020 Summer Olympics in 2013 provided impetus to the push for casinos, with proponents arguing they would serve as an extra draw for visiting spectators. But in October last year, analysts at investment bank Union Gaming said the earliest any integrated resort would start operations in Japan was probably 2022.
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