Casinos coming to Japan? We’re betting on it

April 16, 2007
By Ken Worsley

Buried in a recent International Herald Tribune article on gambling in Macao and the Mediterranean area was a nugget telling us, “Las Vegas Sands is lobbying to introduce casinos in Japan.”

Neither is Las Vegas Sands alone nor is Japan. Taiwan and Thailand are both considering loosening their laws on gambling in order to bring in more Las Vegas-style casinos, which they see as a path to more tourist dollars. As far as Japan goes, AFP tells us that “Lawmakers from Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are already drawing up proposals to allow a handful of huge Vegas-style casinos, which could open their doors within a few years.”

It has long been rumored that gambling is on its way to Tokyo’s Odaiba or Okinawa. There were even rumors last year that the pullout of thousands of US Marines from Okinawa would free up some of the real estate necessary to build the casinos.

Toru Mihara, adviser to the LDP’s casino study group, has said that about half of the current diet members support bringing Las Vegas-style casino gambling to Japan, and, “If we can create legal structures within one or two years to come, maybe in 2012 casinos in Japan will start to operate.”

US casino operators have been quietly working behind the scenes, visiting Japan, lobbying with politicians and hobnobbing. One has to wonder though, if they wouldn’t be better off getting in with some of the local operators of legalized gambling (horse and boat racing) or the grey world of the pachinko industry, who may turn out to be the real movers and shakers.

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