Eyeing integrated resorts
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Despite fears of people getting addicted to gambling, Japanese lawmakers are pushing for such complexes to help boost tourism, create jobs
Local governments and other entities across Japan have started trying to attract so-called integrated resorts, including casinos, to more than 20 locations, believing these resorts will help boost tourism and create new jobs.
The liberalisation of casinos, whose existence is currently prohibited by the Penal Code, is set to become one of the focus topics in Diet debates during an extraordinary session that will convene later this month.
However, deep-rooted concerns are being voiced over fears that many people could become addicted to gambling. There is also concern over the deterioration of social stability that casinos could create.
Integrated resorts are complexes comprising casinos, conference halls, hotels, shopping malls and other recreational facilities. Such resorts are mainly used for international conferences and large-scale events.
In the Marina Bay Sands, an integrated resort in Singapore, revenue from its casino accounts for more than 70 per cent of the total.
“These resorts involve a wide range of related industries and have the potential to create a large number of jobs,” Osaka Governor Ichiro Matsui said in late July at a forum about such resorts held in Osaka.
Some 1,100 people attended the forum, including executives from two firms operating similar resorts overseas.
The Osaka prefectural government has recommended Yumeshima as a candidate site. Yumeshima is a partially developed man-made island in Osaka Bay where 150 hectares of land remains unused.
Three ruling and opposition parties have submitted a bill to create a law for the promotion of casinos to the House of Representatives. The bill stipulates that local governments will have the right to select firms that will operate casinos in Japan.
This year alone, seven companies expressed their willingness to open a casino in Osaka Prefecture, and their executives held meetings with the governor.
“It’s great that the governor, himself, has presented a location and has enthusiastically promoted the plan,” said an executive of one of the companies.
Plans to open casinos in Japan have surfaced and then disappeared repeatedly since around 2000, when then-Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara proposed having a casino in the Odaiba district, Tokyo’s newest city centre in the bay area.
“They can be a pillar of Japan’s economic growth strategy,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said after an inspection visit to an integrated resort in Singapore in May.
The central government set up a team to study the issue in the Cabinet Secretariat in July.
In Singapore, two integrated resorts opened in 2010. There were 15.57 million inbound tourists in 2013, which was about 60 per cent more than in 2009, before they opened.
“Including those in the private sector, there are 20 to 30 campaigns” seeking to create such resorts domestically, said Kotaro Fujimoto, a researcher at the Institute of Amusement Industry Studies at Osaka University of Commerce.
During Diet deliberations in June, an inter-party league of lawmakers aiming to pass a bill promoting casinos emphasised that efforts should be made to complete planned casinos by 2020, when the Tokyo Olympics will be held.
In the midst of such moves, local governments concerned are watching Tokyo. Former Tokyo governor Naoki Inose was positive about having casinos. He once said, “A casino is like Disneyland for adults.”
But the current governor, Yoichi Masuzoe, has maintained a cautious view saying: “I will closely watch the deliberations in the Diet. If the bill passes, the Tokyo metropolitan government will then consider what we should do.”
Concerns from gangs to addiction
Casinos are raising a range of concerns, from gambling addiction to the involvement of organised crime groups.
“Some people are in living hell because they can’t stop gambling, even if they want to,” said Noriko Tanaka, president of the Society Concerned about Gambling Addiction, at a study session held in Tokyo in August.
According to a survey, roughly 5.36 million people across the nation are suspected to be suffering from gambling addiction.
“The government needs to take precautions and promote countermeasures,” said Tanaka, who had a family member that once gambled on boat racing and other activities.
The Japan Federation of Bar Associations also submitted a request to drop the bill to promote integrated resorts Abe and others in May.
Hideo Yamada, the association’s vice president, added, “Casinos are causing many concerns, so we have to appropriately oppose the government’s move to pass the bill just for the sake of possible economic effects.”
