Japanese invite Nassau OTB to take bets on the Japan Cup and offset revenue lost by Roman Andrew Cuomo's closing Nassau OTB only on Roman Catholic Holidays in preference to the same Greek Orthodox holidays observed on a different calendar day. Cuomo assures Japanese that he will use the atomic bomb if necessary to see that Nassau OTB, a public benefit corporation, is NEVER open on any day that Andrew Cuomo is in church. There are no Greeks in New York or Japan.
Asian Business News
Push for Casino Gambling Faces a Key Test in Japan
Current Bill Would Be Step Toward Creating a Potential $40 Billion Industry
May 15, 2014 1:56 p.m. ET
Once considered a shoo-in for Pachinko-crazy Japan, a bill
to legalize casino gambling in the country recently has become far less
certain.
Reuters
TOKYO—The hard-fought bid to legalize
casino gambling in Japan—a potential $40 billion industry—faces a
critical test in the coming weeks. Japanese politicians and casino
executives are increasingly worried it will fail.
Optimism
had bubbled over in recent months that Japan could legalize casinos,
positioning the country to become the world's second-biggest gambling
market after Macau. Casino-resorts are being sold as a way to light a
fire under Japan's sluggish tourism industry as they have in Singapore,
where visitor arrivals have risen some 60% since its two resorts opened
in 2010.
Some analysts are pegging
Japan's potential at more than six times the Las Vegas Strip's $6.5
billion gambling-revenue haul last year.
"I
am aware Singapore and Macau have been successful in bringing in a lot
of people from all over the world as well as many international
meetings," Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe
said in March. "Despite many challenges that we have to discuss
how to overcome, I think [casinos] have a lot of merits."
But fears are once again rising among casino proponents that the plan is losing momentum.
"I saw a 90% chance of the bill passing during the current session earlier this month, but now I think it's fifty-fifty," said
Sakihito Ozawa,
a senior official in the bipartisan group pushing the legislation, during a Thursday interview at his office.
Walking
over to a giant calendar hung on the wall, he used a pencil to circle
the remaining opportunities to discuss the bill during the current
parliament session. With the casino bill just one of 17 on the agenda,
Friday, May 30, might be the only realistic date, he said. In order for
casinos to become legal in Japan, two bills need to be passed—the
current bill, which asks the government to create a legal framework for
casinos within one year, and a second bill detailing that framework.
At a gathering of the world's largest casino companies in Tokyo, executives said they were concerned about the outcome.
"As an ex-Wall Street guy, it's all about deal momentum," said MGM Resorts International chief executive
Jim Murren
on Thursday. "When you lose the deal momentum, sometimes you lose
the deal," said the Las Vegas-based executive. Since February, the
company has significantly ramped up its efforts in Japan, reassigning
some executives to a Tokyo team, hiring a local special adviser, and
engaging architects to discuss a possible casino-resort, Mr. Murren
said.
If the bill were to go to a vote,
it is likely to pass easily because of support from the ruling Liberal
Democratic Party and several others, say proponents. But even though
opponents are in the minority, some have outsize influence that could
threaten the plan, the proponents said.
"This is a consensus society," said
Toru Mihara,
an adviser to the 200-member bipartisan group pushing the bill, on Thursday.
Whether
the current casino bill will be debated on May 30 will likely be
decided by the end of next week, putting increasing urgency on the two
sides. But the complexities of Japanese politics appeared to be the
deciding factor.
The Diet is "almost
like a living thing," pro-casino lawmaker
Takeshi Iwaya
Thursday told attendees of the Japan Gaming Congress in Tokyo.
The event was packed with a who's who of the casino industry, along with
executives from major Japanese companies that could benefit from the
passage of the law.
Earlier in the day
more than 60 people, including five opposition lawmakers from the Japan
Communist Party and the Social Democratic Party, as well as the
Democratic Party of Japan, attended a meeting featuring speeches by
antigambling lawyers and a gambling addict.
Since
these opposition parties have limited seats in parliament, they said
their strategy is to kill the bill by blocking it from even being
discussed.
This is a real possibility,
especially because the politician who chairs the Upper House committee
that will be debating the bill is against it, said Mr. Ozawa.
"It
is vital that we won't let the discussion begin," lawmaker Mikishi
Daimon, a member of the Communist Party, told attendees of the
antigambling rally.
Mr. Ozawa said he is
pulling out all the stops by pressuring the prime minister's office and
business leaders to use their influence to get the bill on the May 30
agenda. It will all come down to whether the ruling Liberal Democratic
Party "has guts," he said.
"To jolt the
economy, to move the numbers, something special has to be done," said
Mike Leven,
president of Las Vegas Sands, which has casinos in Macau,
Singapore and the U.S. "It's not just a new plant, not just a new
building, not a 14-day Olympics," he told attendees at the casino conference.
According
to 2012 data, Japan ranked 33rd globally as a tourism destination with
8.4 million visitors, trailing far behind even much smaller Asian rivals
like Hong Kong, Singapore and Macau, said CLSA. Nearly 10 times more
people visited top-ranked France than Japan, the brokerage noted.
"If
we turn them down this time, I don't know what they'll think," said
Yoshiko Mimi Koga,
referring to the big international casino companies who are eager
to bid for licenses in Japan. Ms. Koga, who quit her job as an
international marketing executive at
Wynn Resorts Ltd.
WYNN +0.02%
last year to become more involved in the political struggle to
legalize casinos in her home country, said she was worried about the
bill's prospects because many Japanese politicians are afraid of
commitment. "This is how we've been since World War II," said the casino
consultant, whose business card is decorated with a Japanese
comic-strip style caricature of herself.
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