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Pro-casino lawmakers have given up on getting a bill to legalise casino gambling enacted during the current Diet session.
Members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, the Japan Innovation Party and the Party for Future Generations submitted the bill for the second time last April and had hoped the bill would pass last year. But it got shelved after the Diet became preoccupied with a debate on controversial security legislation, the Trans-Pacific Pact free trade talks and the Olympic stadium fiasco.
The plan was to have the bill enacted during the current Diet session but LDP sources now say it is likely to be delayed again after the upper house election in the summer due to difference in opinion about the bill between the LDP and its coalition partner, the Komeito Party.
The casino bill, if passed, would establish an industry analysts say could generate 4 trillion yen a year and which Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sees as key to economic growth.
Attempts to legalise casino gambling in Japan, which industry experts say is one of the world's last major untapped gaming markets, have been delayed repeatedly amid opposition from lawmakers worried about addiction and organised crime.
Companies such as Las Vegas Sands Corp and MGM Resorts International are vying to win licenses to operate casinos in Japan, a market that brokerage CLSA estimates could generate annual revenue of $40 billion.
© Japan Today
13 Comments
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nakanoguy01
my thoughts exactly, nostromo. the lawmakers don't give a rat's arse about addiction. pachinko parlors and the ponies are donating huge sums of money to make sure casinos don't open up in japan.
gogogo
Being deferred until Japan can figure out how the Yakuza will make money from it. Pachinko is big business and they don't want anyone rocking the boat
nostromo
In other words, they are concerned about vested interests in the current Japanese gambling markets not getting a slice of the casino market....
Citizen2012
If ever we needed another proof that those people are working for themselves and not for the public like they should, the public never asked for any Casino.
nattorice
Remember when I was living in Osaka that they where scouting for land where to put a casino and the idea was to put in on one of the islands across from tsuruhama. This was way back in 2011, this plan isn't going away anytime soon.
jforce
Generates money how? Gambling losses. Not a healthy way to build a society. Plus gambling areas are the tackiest places on Earth.
wtfjapan
Hope this never get enacted. Casinos = organized crime. so what is Pachinko then!? just gambling disguised as gaming, and we know how much organsied crime is involved in that. At least with Casinos there will be a limited number of them and it will be heavily regulated by the government, will organise crime infiltrate it, most probably, but not on the scale as Pachinko already is
Wc626
Japan has seen record numbers of foreign visitors in recent years. Lots of them would drop large sums of cash at the Table Games (especially the Chinese). Others would just come for the entertainment, clubs, restaurants, onsens, golf etc.
Maybe a Casino would rake in some major dough. Let's face it, Pachinko pays nickles and dimes compared to Table Games or hitting a nice Jackpot off a Vegas-style slot machine.
Organized crime is going to be here, there, regardless. Why not everyone make a few bucks? Plus it'd be the only place where westerns can tip $ our japanese hosts.
gokai_wo_maneku
Hope this never get enacted. Casinos = organized crime.
sighclops
The wheels are already in motion - trust me.
nath
@Aldebaran You're kidding, right? Vegas was literally built by the mafia. The downtown entertainment business is still extremely shady, to say the least.
Drew Chappell
Im sure those against casinos in Japan....take their yearly vacation (or have visited) in Vegas, Macao or some other destination.
Aldebaran
Some have suggested that casino gambling equals organized crime. I draw their attention to Las Vegas, a strictly run gaming city which vets all gaming principals before opening casino doors, not after. Thus, if Vegas can operate without organized crime even remotely involved, Japan should do same. $40 billion is nothing to sneeze at.