October 09, 2014

Japan casinos could be foreign gamblers only

The Japanese lower house of parliament which is currently debating the casino bill that would allow casino resorts in the country for the first time ever, is now considering to amend the bill to only allow foreigners to enter and not locals.

According to media reports from Japan the chairman of a bipartisan grouping of lawmakers set up to handle the Integrate Resorts Promotion bill suggested it might be watered down to make such resorts for foreigners-only.

It is believed that by doing so would gain the support of minority political parties that are currently opposing the gambling bill. Letting just overseas players in initially would mean there is no risk of gambling related issues such as problem gambling.

However this possibility even in the short to medium term of casino resorts opening would severely impact on international casino operators spending the billions they said they would given that the whole nation on which they have casino resorts are not allowed to enter.

In Singapore where they currently have this model of overseas gamblers only allowed the market is worth $2.7 billion in revenues per year, analysts believe that figure could be four times higher is locals were allowed to gamble.

Should Japan decide to go down the foreign gambler only route all the casino operators some offering $10 billion to build a casino resort would certainly water down those estimates on construction given the lower revenues generated by just overseas gamblers.

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