Hot springs are passe - Japan's tourist towns covet casinos

People often make a bad decision in time of economic desperation. Casino is a bad choice for a Japanese long term investment. Casino does not teach Japanese children a principal of hardworking that leads to prosperity. Who will work for 750 yen per hour while some gamblers are winning a big prize? Furthermore, casino will attract foreign serious criminals.

Remember the house always wins.

“Hot springs, Japanese cuisine, Mt Fuji and geisha (female entertainers) - these traditional Japanese things alone are not enough,”

“Japan’s population is rapidly declining and, for tourist towns, getting foreigners to visit is extremely important.”

Are you sure you want this. Have you seen what has happened in other places. Obviously you have no idea so let me enlighten you. Most of the gamblers will be Chinese. Gambling will attract prostitution, loan sharks and criminal gangs (all foreign). Most of those tourist won't spend much apart from gambling, or even have the time or interest for traditional Japanese things.

You'll just be ruining the atmosphere for the real tourists!

Learn how to do market research and do proper marketing in foreign countries before you ruin your hometown for everyone! .

Oh, and at the end of the day chunks of you precious hometown will be owned / operated by overseas (mostly Chinese) interests. Good luck!

Please no! geronimo. I think you are spot on with your comment.

Prostitution, loan sharks and criminal gangs already exist and prosper here in Japan. There are pro’s and con’s to the casino business.

One wonders if this legalization could also drastically alter the pachinko industry in Japan. It could mean you will get cash payouts directly on-premises with this new law.

Anyway, I think it's possible with this law, only areas well outside metro areas can get casinos--akin to how Indian casinos run in the USA. That means you're going to either visit Hokkaido or the Akita, Iwate or Aomori Prefectures to get to one. It could mean more popularity for the Akita Shinkansen, that's to be sure. :-)

The head line is nonsense. The people are not going to abandon their visits, often with the whole family, to hot springs and gamble away their savings at casinos.

I hope for a failure of this business model. It doesn't attract the type of tourist anybody would want and only exacerbates the gambling problems of local people.

"Japan is one of the world’s last untapped gaming markets and, with a wealthy population and proximity to China, could generate $15 billion annually from casinos,"

Where would the $15 billion go?

A golden parachute for the competent authority.

If they do this, I hope they forbid locals from gambling there as the Bahamas disallow their citizens from gambling in their casinos. Please study Detroit and Windsor and the major downsides of casinos.

Thank god. I liver near Atami, a seaside town and one of the places mentioned, and I've often thought what this place needs a Vegas-style pyramid-shaped casino with a light shining to the heavens in the middle of all these stuffy onsens, ryokans, and Geisha theatres. You know, something more traditional and representative of Japan's Egyptian roots. Jackpot!

The pachinko addiction problem is swept under the rug in this country. The last thing Japan needs is the social problems casinos will bring. This all boils down to greedy little bureaucrats wanting to get their grubby pockets lined I reckon.

globalwatcher: Furthermore, casino will attract foreign serious criminals.

Why are you worried about FOREIGN serious criminals? All the major criminals cannot be Japanese? That's very insulting.

I agree with Spanki - the pachinko addiction problem is under-reported, and a good indicator of the problems that casinos would create. Also (and most importantly, in my opinion), casinos historically cause a major increase in crime - not just by organized crime groups and the like, but by normal people who become desperate. People lose all their life's money at the casino, and do something crazy to try to get it back. People get addicted, and need to get more money to continue playing. All this leads to a lot of smaller crime that builds and builds and builds and soon the city becomes very sleazy. All the bright lights and glamor of worldwide gambling cities tries to block out the problems that exist on their streets.

geronimo and others are spot on. Casinos will bring crime and misery. I can't think of many things I'd less rather do than sit in a boiling hot bath full of men, but replacing onsens with casinos is not a great idea.

Fine, do it but nationalise it, don't let MGM do it... use every yen made to redistribute wealth from people who worked through relatively prosperous times and have the time and money to waste on this, and channel the money to pay off the debt rather than thrust it on the victims that are the young workers of today.

“Hot springs, Japanese cuisine, Mt Fuji and geisha (female entertainers) - these traditional Japanese things alone are not enough,” said Kanekiyo Morita, a hotel executive who has proposed a pyramid-shaped casino in Atami, a hot springs town in central Japan. “Japan’s population is rapidly declining and, for tourist towns, getting foreigners to visit is extremely important.”

So they think that tourists would rather gamble their money away than soak in a hot spring or go sightseeing? That's really pretty sad.

Japan needs to play fair and allow foriegn investment and access to its markets/customers. Japanese have to go abroad for many items; the quality of life could improve drasitcally if Japan would open up for business. Casinos are not the answer.

What happpened to the good ol ethnocentric japan ?

Kinda miss that in light of this casino project

There is no report what kind of income future workers will be paid./ Nothing about Casino's income. either. There is nothing stated where they will build in Japan. Just how many billion dollars they have spent for each casinos iin Macao, etc. some time ago, there was an article that Japanese Government will create Gaming Board and its licensing procedure similar to Nevada's. All I can guess is that these Nevada based three organizations are anxious to have Northern China's billionaires and multi millionaires have easy trip to spend their money in Japan.