Japan set to open the first casino, Macau’s opportunities outweigh the competition

On April 15, the Japanese government approved the plans of building Japan’s first casino in the western city of Osaka, with the goal of opening an integrated resort with a casino, convention center, and other facilities by 2029.

Professor Davis Ka Chio FONG, the director of the Gaming Research Institute at UM, was interviewed by ‘Macaodaily’ recently. He stated that Japan’s opening of the bet would bring more opportunities to Macao than competition. Japan has been discussing the development of gambling for many years. As early as 2014, Japanese officials and scholars came to Macao to attend the conference and expressed their hope to learn from the experience of Macao’s gaming industry. However, due to the change of political parties in Japan, the legalization of local gambling has repeatedly occurred. Now, two decades later, concrete projects and implementation dates have really emerged.

Professor Davis explained that “opportunities outweigh competition” due to several factors. The legalization of gambling in Japan has been in the making for a long time, and the legalization of gambling in Japan will lead to a greater acceptance of gambling by the local citizens and an open attitude towards integrated resorts with casinos, which will be conducive to cross-border promotion and marketing by local gaming operators, including inviting Japanese tourists to Macau.

According to Prof. Davis’s analysis, Japan has a large population and its citizens spend HK$400 billion a year on commercial gaming games such as pachinko machines, surpassing Macau’s annual gross gaming revenue. With these mature gaming habits in Japan, it is believed that Japan will not need to look far and wide for its future customer attraction strategy, as the local people’s gaming demand is sufficient to support the operation of integrated resorts, so the emergence of IR may only bring competition to other local gaming consumption such as pachinko machines, horse racing, and lotteries. The business operations and regional positioning of the Japanese and Macau gaming industries are different, so the direct competition is not too severe.

Sources: macaodaily.com