“Integrated Resorts are a necessary initiative to promote our country as a tourist nation. They will attract visitors from Japan and abroad and spread Japan’s charm to the world,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Friday. In addition to the casino, the resort will be equipped with hotels, shopping mall, museum and ferry terminal. Cost point: 13.5 billion US dollars (12.2 billion euros).
The artificial island of Yumeshima, located in Osaka Bay, is poised to become a new tourism magnet. Up to 20 million visitors are expected to use the resort every year from 2029 onwards. According to the Japanese government, they must come from both domestic and foreign countries. The project is also expected to create 15,000 new jobs.
Exiting the “Japan Crisis”
A few years ago, Japan building a casino was still a dream in the casino industry. Because game rooms have been banned in the island state for a long time. A law banned all forms of gambling except, inter alia, betting on car, boat and horse races and other games.
Pachinko parlors are therefore extremely popular. They are not listed as gambling and are therefore legal, even if they are very reminiscent of slot machines. The game involves dumping metal balls into machines in hopes that they will find a hole. Non-monetary prizes can be exchanged for cash thanks to legal loopholes.
AP/The Yomiuri Shimbun/Masanori Genko Kishida wants to attract more tourists to the country
Since 2000, the game has been raised on the political agenda at irregular intervals. The weakening economy in Japan has always played a secondary role. In order to cushion the fallout from the long “Japan Crisis” of the 1990s, the then Governor of Tokyo Prefecture, Shintaro Ishihara, called for casinos to be legalized in 2003. To do this, he converted a floor of the City Hall into a small fictional casino complete with roulette tables for two days.
Over time, a growing number of those responsible have spoken out – notably the Liberal Democratic Party, to which Ishihara and Prime Minister Kishida belong. For example, the aim was to use casinos to cushion the costs of hosting the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Over the years, however, the global casino industry has also increased its pressure. The island nation is considered a valuable market due to its thriving economy and proximity to countries where the population spends heavily on gambling. A first bill to legalize casinos appeared in 2013 and, three years later, the way was opened for the industry.
Nagasaki is awaiting approval
However, casino operations have only really been possible since 2018. Despite the protests and concerns, Japan has passed a law allowing the construction of integrated resorts in which casinos will find their new and, above all, legal home. The key figure behind this was Japan’s then Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who had ruled the country since 2012 – before being assassinated in 2022.
Portal/Toru Hanai
Legalization was part of Abe’s economic policy (“Abenomics”): loose monetary policy, high public investment, and greater deregulation. Even former US President Donald Trump has approached Abe about casinos. In 2018, Japan decided to issue a total of three licenses for the construction of integrated resorts, i.e. indirectly for casinos.
But while the search for suitable locations was still ongoing, a bribery scandal caused a sensation. Japanese politicians are said to have accepted money from a Chinese gambling company. The group wanted to obtain one of the licenses or required that the number of licenses be increased. A Liberal Democratic Party member was eventually sentenced to four years in prison.
It got the three licenses that the big cities of Wakayama, Osaka and Nagasaki showed interest in. Wakayama withdrew ahead of the 2022 application deadline. While Osaka can now prepare for resort construction with operators MGM Resorts International and Orix Corp, Nagasaki still has to wait for official approval.
The plans still need to be examined, he said on Friday. The mega-project in Nagasaki, which will be built alongside the existing “Huis Ten Bosch” theme park, is being managed by Casinos Austria International, a subsidiary of state-owned Casinos Austria AG.
Concerned about gambling addiction
However, the construction of casinos has always been considered controversial – opponents fear a worsening of gambling addiction, which is already a big problem in Japan. According to a government survey, 2.8 million people in the country were addicted to gambling in 2021, or 2.2% of the population. Clubs that care for gambling addicts referred in an open letter to the growing number of young people who have become addicted to online gambling.
After the law was passed in 2018, nearly two-thirds of respondents across the country spoke out against gambling houses. A recent poll found that 45% of Osaka residents support the construction of the resort in Yumeshima, while 38% oppose it – many of whom are women and elderly people. According to a survey by the Asahi Shimbun, the majority of the population is still against the project.
earthquake proof casino
Osaka Prefectural Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura tried to calm critics in late March. Only three percent of the resort is devoted to the casino. There will also be strict controls at the entrance. There will be a limit on the number of visits per week for Japanese players.
They also have to pay an entrance fee of 6,000 yen (about 40 euros) – part of this fee goes towards anti-gambling measures. People suffering from gambling addiction, for example, can be excluded at the request of their families.
Another problem also worried the population in the past: earthquakes. Research has determined that the soil on the artificial island on which the resort will stand would not be able to withstand an earthquake. The administration in Osaka was then forced to invest a few billions in soil reinforcement.