Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING MAY 2018 10 Worth the wait www.asgam.com J APAN’S IR journey reminds me a lot of a band that works for 20 years to become an overnight success story. First touted back in 2002 – around the same time Macau was granting gaming licenses to its first concessionaires – the past 16 years have been mostly filled with false dawns and a frustrating lack of progress for those anticipating a Japanese casino industry. But just as the sudden passing of the initial Integrated Resort Promotion Bill through the Diet in December 2016 caught the world by surprise, so too a series of meetings last month between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its coalition partner Komeito provided an unexpected shot of clarity as to how Japan’s casino landscape will look. Neither the LDP during its current six-year reign nor the handful of governments in the decade prior were able to reach IR consensus with their political peers, but after 16 years of stagnation it took the LDP and Komeito just a few days to agree on casino visitation, tax rates, entry fees, floor space and numbers. Best of all, the restrictions placed on operators – which had threatened to become oppressive – weren’t nearly as prohibitive as first feared. We now know, for example, that there will be three licenses awarded in the first round with the moratorium on issuing more licenses reduced from 10 years to seven. A flat tax rate of 30% will be imposed, more than Singapore (12% to 22%) and the Philippines (15%) but less than Macau’s 39% and considerably better than a previously flagged sliding tax rate that rose as high as 50%. The casino floor will be limited to 3% of total IR floor space but the parties scrapped a plan to also limit the size of each IR to 15,000 square meters – giving operators far more creative scope. Finally, visitation for residents will be limited to three times a week and 10 times a month, with a ¥6,000 entry fee applying to all residents each visit. Having seen these issues discussed and debated for the past 17 months, ever since the passing of the IR Promotion Bill, operators at last have some clarity around the rules they will have to work with – even if there is talk of further stagnation within the Japanese parliament due to a series of unrelated scandals involving the Shinzo Abe government. Froman industry viewpoint, the timing of such clarifications is pretty good too with the Japan Gaming Congress just around the corner on 10 and 11 May in Tokyo. Until a few weeks ago not a whole lot of progress had been made since 2017, but the latest push by the LDP to present a finalized IR Implementation Bill to parliament breathes new life into this year’s Congress. For the record, IAG will be heavily involved with the Japan Gaming Congress in 2018, with our CEO chairing Day 2 of the conference and a team of four, including yours truly, developing an informative new JgC mini-magazine in conjunction with organizers Clarion Events. It promises to be an exciting, insightful week – see you all there! Ben Blaschke Managing Editor We crave your feedback. Please email your comments to bb@asgam.com. EDITORIAL