Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming February 2015 8 A year ago, casino legalization in Japan looked like a sure thing. The bill to promote integrated resorts had been introduced in December 2013 and was due for debate during the Diet’s 2014 legislative session, backed by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Gaming companies from across the globe were jostling for position to win favor in the widely anticipated licensing contest in the world’s third-biggest economy. For a variety of reasons, the IR bill wasn’t approved last year. This year, Mr Abe, the country’s No. 1 casino booster, is coming off a landslide victory in a December snap election that increased his coalition’s lower-house majority in the Diet, which began its new legislative session late last month. Yet casino legalization doesn’t look like a sure thing anymore. Proponents in Japan still believe IRs will be legalized in time to open by the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo. However, for the international gaming community, which has long seen Japan as Asia’s most promising untapped market outside mainland China, the fever has cooled-decidedly in the face of Japanese realities. Feature The high hopes for casino legalization in Japan have dimmed considerably. But the arguments for integrated resorts remain strong By Muhammad Cohen Sayonara IRs? International gaming executives who believed strongly that casino legalization was imminent now put the chances at no better than even money. “There was likely a confluence of factors that changed the outlook so dramatically, including [IR legislation] getting caught in the ‘politics as usual’ vortex, as well as a wary populace, with polling suggesting many Japanese are opposed to casino gaming,” explains Union Gaming Research Macau Managing Partner Grant Govertsen. A report last month from US parent company Union Gaming Group forecasted IRs won’t happen by 2020 and cast doubt on the logic of IRs to drive tourism in Tokyo and Osaka, already Japan’s top tourist destinations. “This doesn’t change our overall bullish view that someday Japan will, indeed, be second only to Macau in terms of global gaming markets. It’s just that the 2020 timeline is in doubt at this point,” says Mr Govertsen. “We also fully believe that both Tokyo and Osaka will be home to IRs, regardless of the original intention of the tourism mandate.” SPECIAL REPORT