JAKARTA - Japan last month approved plans to build the country's first casino, to be precise in western Osaka City, paving the way for resorts worth 1.08 trillion yen (8.1 billion US dollars) to open in 2029, to attract domestic and international tourist spending.
The giant resort complex, located in Yumeshima, a reclamation island in Osaka Bay which will be the venue for the World Expo in 2025, will also include hotels, conference centers, shopping centers, museums, and ferry terminals. Meanwhile, high-end players will have access to adjacent helicopter runways.
Casinos were previously illegal in Japan along with other private gambling. However, the 2018 Integrated Resort Law (IR) granted exceptions to casino games such as casinos or tariffs in officially approved places as part of efforts to attract tourists.
Japan is seen as a valuable market for casino operators, as its population of 126 million and its close proximity to wealthy gamblers in Asia, although polls show many residents are concerned about addiction and crime.
US casino operator MGM Resorts International and local partner Orix Corp have spearheaded the Osaka IR project, each of which owns 40 percent of the shares in the company set up to manage the compound, reported by Reuters on May 10, while another 20 companies own the remaining 20 percent, according to local government documents.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the project would contribute to Kansai's regional economic growth around Osaka and Japan which was bigger after World Expo 2025, as the country aims to re-increase tourist spending after the pandemic.
The resort targets revenue of 520 billion yen per year, mostly from the gaming business, to attract 6 million international tourists and 14 million domestic visitors, project documents show.
MGM Resorts, Orix and the Osaka municipality and Prefecture said they welcomed the approval and would work together to develop the project.
It is known, the Mainichi newspaper poll on Osaka residents this month revealed that 45 percent of respondents supported the casino, 38 percent opposed and 17 percent hesitant, although women and parents were more likely to oppose.
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Previously, Japan's casino plans were hampered in the past by the coronavirus pandemic and bribery scandals that led to the arrest of a well-known lawmaker.
The operators of the Las Vegassign Corp. major casinos, Caesars Entertainment Corp. andxivers Resorts Ltd withdrew from the projects that had been planned.
Only Osaka and SouthwestERN prefecturemen will bid at the April 2022 deadline. The government said it needed more time to review luring plans, led by Casinos Austria International.
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