NORTH ASIA 46
JAPAN
Policy delays give late movers a fighting chance The decision by the Abe government to drag its feet on issuing more detailed regulations governing the IR industry and to delay the establishment of the Casino Management Board probably changes little about the shape of the national regulatory regime, but it may potentially exercise a profound effect on which local governments get licensed and which IR operators are selected.
A
ccording to the original schedule, the Casino Management Board (the official English name has yet to be revealed) should already be up and running with almost a hundred staff members, preparing themselves to become the main regulator for each IR’s casino floor. Also, local governments should now be preparing to launch their RFP processes and international IR operators pouring over the details of the published regulations, adjusting their bids and finalizing their strategies. Instead, many are trapped in an unexpected holding pattern, preparing as much as they can under the circumstances, but mainly waiting for the central government to come out of its cave and to provide everyone with more concrete information. Now that the July House of Councillors elections have passed, this may come at any time. All accounts suggest that there never was any national policy reason why the delay occurred, but rather it was a political decision to remove the casino controversy from public view so as not to work against the electoral interests of the ruling party. In other words, the delay will probably have little or no consequence for the ultimate shape of the national regulatory regime. The impact on local governments, however, may indeed be highly consequential. The Osaka government, for example, is increasingly panicked that national policy delays will doom the anticipated Yumeshima IR to open its doors only after the 2025 World Expo is concluded. This would signify a tremendous loss of opportunity as millions of visitors who would have seen and experienced the IR will instead not have the chance to do so. It would also deprive the new IR of the potential revenues from some of those visitors, an inflow
Asia Gaming Briefings | August 2019
that might have assisted the operators to more quickly recover their vast investment funds. To be clear, the Osaka government has not given up its goal of opening the IR in 2024, but many independent analysts believe this target will prove to be much too ambitious, and reports suggest that even many local officials are losing confidence in their timeline.
Beyond Osaka, it has long been a toss-up about which local governments will receive the other two IR licenses. Potentially, the delay might change the lineup of winners and losers, as the early movers see their advantages reduced and the late movers have time that they otherwise would not have had to put together more credible local policies.
