MARKET INSIGHT: INTEGRATED RESORTS: JAPAN


With 124 million population and its proximity to China, Japan’s Integrated Resorts project ticked all the right boxes and the country attracted unprecedented interest as investors across the globe began to do their sums.


Te Asian region at the time was prime real estate for casino development. Macau was booming and IRs in other areas, such as Singapore, had set a benchmark for what was achievable with the right concept and investment.


With three initial IR resorts up for grabs, the interest was huge as the world’s top-tier operators formulated plans to be a part of what has long been regarded as the largest untapped market for casino gaming.


However, a decade later and not a single shovel has touched earth. Te idea to get the resorts open for the 2020 Olympics started as laughably ambitious and ended as distant memory, and when Covid hit a whole new set of delays left the IR projects sidelined - moving at such a glacial pace that many feared the IR project would melt away entirely.


However, there was movement. Not always in the right direction, but movement nonetheless. Tree IR plans became two when only Osaka and Nagasaki submitted their final bids by the April 2022 deadline and in April this year, the Japanese government finally approved the Osaka IR plan; after an expert panel selected to evaluate the proposal, and the prefecture governments, agreed the plans met all the requirements. Te caveat being that the government has said more time is still required to review the Nagasaki plan.


Meanwhile, Wakayama has fully withdrawn from the IR race. Te prefecture had selected Clairvest Neem Ventures as its bidder with Caesars Entertainment set to operate the resort, but this proposal was rejected by the prefecture last year.


Interest quickly waned for many of the operators who were initially at the forefront of the bidding war. Caesers pulled out in 2019 (before teaming up with Clairvest), whilst Las Vegas Sands withdrew in 2020; Suncity withdrew from its Wakayama bid in 2021, whilst Genting Singapore and Melco Resorts were both left without a resort area after Yokohama cancelled its bid to host an Integrated Resort 18 months ago, when the new mayor, Takeharu Yamanaka, came into office.


Genting later confirmed it is now fully out of the IR race, which leaves only MGM and its partner ORIX Corp fully committed to continuing with the Japanese dream in Osaka and Casinos Austria International Japan with plans for the Nagasaki bid.


P84 WIRE / PULSE / INSIGHT / REPORTS


Interest quickly waned for many of the operators who


were initially at the forefront of the bidding war. Caesers pulled out in 2019 (before


teaming up with Clairvest), whilst Las Vegas Sands withdrew in 2020; Suncity withdrew from its Wakayama bid in 2021, whilst Genting Singapore and Melco Resorts were both left without a resort area after Yokohama cancelled its bid to host an Integrated


Resort 18 months ago, when the new mayor, Takeharu Yamanaka, came into office.


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