The Question of Japan Casino Legislation Active Once Again

The soonest date we will have casinos Legalized in Japan is 2022. All eyes are being pointed to Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe.

There were many attempts to legalize the casino industry in Japan, but the previous compositions of their governments were neither advocating nor showing interest to conduct the necessary steps and pass certain bills to make this happen. However, the situation is different now when Japan’s ruling LDP (Liberal Democratic Party) has the majority in Japan’s both houses of the legislature for the first time in the last 25 years. They are very interested in monetization of the casino industry, especially after receiving so many positive reviews and analysis by gaming experts. According to their reports, Japan is losing 40$ Billion per year for not having casino industry legalized. The best part of them having the majority is that they no longer depend on the votes of their counter – parties.

Prime Minister of Japan Was Supporting the Idea Before

The last legislation efforts and attempts were seen back in 2013, a couple of months after World Olympic Committee awarded 2020 Olympics Games to Japan. The initial thought of the Japanese Government of that time was to take advantage of the huge number of tourists, but all bills and proposals were blocked by The Komiteo, the biggest rival party to LDP.

Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe has made a couple of promises to the public recently, with main thoughts being directed to economic recovery and revision of the constitution. Abe and his party are the ones who were supporting the legalization of casinos in the past, but they were a couple of votes short to pass the bill. Since that is not the case today, the only question left to be answered is how Abe ranks this matter on his list of priorities.

A big number of donations to renew the country

As things stand right now, the soonest date we could see casinos in Japan is 2022, so the initial thought to boost the country’s income during the Olympics won’t be possible to achieve. Everything is in the hands of the legislative bodies now, and this case is known as the Integrated Resort (IR) Bill.

There were a couple of recent attempts by the biggest casino brands to ease the pressure by sending huge donations to Japan. Officially, the main purpose of the money was to help the efforts to recover from devastating earthquakes and tsunamis all over the country. It would be way too harsh to say that this was also an attempt to soften the Japanese Government and their views on the gambling industry, but it’s also hard to think that none of these donations had a political background.