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The Japanese parliament, the Diet, will soon discuss the IR Promotion Bill
Japanese casino Bill set for March introduction
The delicate negotiations surrounding the legalisation of casinos for Integrated Resorts in Japan appear to have reached enough of a pitch to allow a preliminary Bill to go to the Diet. But, as Hugh Sorrill reports, there is a very long way to go and many mountains to climb before casinos become a reality.
slowlyrising JAPAN
Another step has been taken down the tortuous path towards the legalisation of casinos in Japan after Diet member and chairman of the cross-party Alliance for the Promotion of Integrated Resorts with Casinos (the IR Alliance), Issei Koga, said he would submit a first-stage IR Promotion Bill to the current session of parliament. The Bill (to Promote the Devel- opment of a Specific Inte- grated Tourist Facilities Zone) could be presented to the Diet as soon as the middle of March or early April. The Bill is designed as a
beachhead that would enshrine the principle of Integrated Resorts in the country, with the details on implementation to be put forward in subsequent draft legislation. Aki Tsuruoka of consult- ants Gaming Capital Manage-
ment told International Casino Review: “There will be an attempt to propose the Bill in this session, although there is no firm date yet. It is a very complicated situation because there is a lot of oppo- sition to the idea of casinos not just among politicians but also among Japanese cit- izens. Gambling is prohib- ited by the government at the moment and their first priority remains the relief of those areas affected by last year’s earthquakes and tsunami. Casino legislation is very much a secondary pri- ority.”
Funding the continuing
relief effort, however, is a major issue and one of the IR Promotion Bill’s strongest provisions politically is the use of the money raised by such operations to go towards those vast expenses. The success of the two IRs in Singapore has not gone unnoticed. Koga, a member of the
ruling Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), told a recent meeting of the party’s policy committee (the Cabinet Section) that the Bill’s progress through the party’s own approval processes was moving forward. He said: “This issue [will now be sent] to the [party] board meeting to become active. I believe in this way that the IR Promo- tion Bill will gain public con- sensus and then government agencies will be able to follow the movement.” He added that the opposi- tion Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is enthusiastic about the proposition and that the LDP’s own policy chief was a member of the IR Alliance.
Sakihito Ozawa, the secre-
tary general of the IR Alliance, noted: “It would be strange if Japan does not pursue the promotion of Integrated Resorts because it is a global standard.” The specific aim of the Bill
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is to establish the principle of developing Integrated Resorts as internationally competitive and attractive destinations. It calls for the establishment of a Casino Control Board to licence, approve and regulate all those involved in offering casino-based entertainment, from operators to suppliers, and for the government to prepare the ground in terms of player protection, surveil- lance and security, preven- tion of criminal involvement, underage gambling etc. It also calls for the estab- lishment of a ‘Headquarters’ for the promotion and fur- therance of the IRs, essen- tially to develop the second phase legislation that will deal with all the specific issues of regulation as well as acting as a central meeting point between the government, the regulatory bodies and local officials. It would be headed by the Prime Minister assisted by ministers and would
appoint a 20-member council made up of ten parliamentar- ians and ten experts. However urgent the need
Issei Koga, chairman of the IR Alliance
for additional revenues to cover the costs of rebuilding a swathe of north eastern Japan, the progress of any measure to legalise casino gambling will continue only very, very slowly, especially given the proposed involve- ment of the entire cabinet in the next stage of the process when ministers have many other demands on their time. Even if the IR Promotion Bill manages to overcome its significant hurdles, there would then be a long wait before the substantive second phase would even start to be discussed. If all goes well and Integrated Resorts do finally gain approval, the process of iden- tifying the right location and then construction will extend the eventual opening of legal casinos in Japan far into the future.
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