Inside Asian Gaming

September 2009 | INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 21 19 (15) Tan Soo Nan Chief Executive, Singapore Tote Board 20 (20) Kunio Busujima Founder, Director and Senior Advisor, Sankyo Co As Chief Executive of Singapore’s Tote Board, Tan Soo Nan is responsible for overseeing one of Asia’s oldest and most successful government gaming monopolies, which has roots going back to 1968. In 2007, Singapore’s Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports said 53% of Singapore’s then 4.5 million population regularly participated in the Tote Board’s 4D lottery. This four-digit lottery draw held at weekends provides the bulk of the annual revenue generated by the Board—around S$4.2 billion (US$2.91 billion) in 2007. In 2008, betting tax from all the Tote Board’s activities—including lotteries, soccer betting, horse racing and trackside pari- mutuel betting—contributed S$1.81 billion (US$1.26 billion) to Singapore’s national budget, according to the country’s Ministry of Finance. The estimated contribution of betting tax to the 2009 budget is S$1.86 however, and the modest entry price of the Tote’s lottery products (S$100 per day for the casinos versus S$1 for ordinary entry to the 4D draw), it seems the casinos are aimed at distinctly different markets in terms of consumer income. Mr Tan has extensive business experience as a managing director of DBS bank and as a senior executive with a subsidiary of Temasek Holdings, the Singapore government’s investment vehicle. He will need the benefit of that commercial knowledge to ensure the Tote maintains its strong position in Singapore’s expanding gaming market. billion; a year-on-year rise of 2.8%, according to the ministry. The Tote Board also donates surplus funds generated after tax from the operations of Singapore Turf Club and Singapore Pools to social projects in Singapore. To illustrate just what a hold the 4D lottery in particular has over the locals’ imagination, whole websites exist devoted to the reported ‘science’ of identifying and picking lucky 4D numbers. Local media reports say devotees even stop at the site of car accidents to jot down registration numbers for possible use in the draw. Why bad luck for a motorist translates into good luck for a lottery player isn’t fully explained in the reports. Whether Singapore’s casino resorts will cannibalise any of the revenues from Tote Board betting products when the casinos open next year remains to be seen. Slot machines would normally be considered the natural competitor to lotteries, given the generally better odds of achieving a win on slots and the modest stake money involved. Given the relatively high cost of casino entry for Singapore residents, out into other areas of entertainment and gaming, Mr Busujima’s business, Sankyo Co, has stayed largely focused on its core business. At the age of 83, Mr Busujima has now stepped down as Chairman of Sankyo Co, the company he founded in 1966, in favour of his son Hideyuki. Mr Busujima senior remains, however, one of the wealthiest people in Japan, occupying the number two spot (up from number three last year) on Forbes.com’s ‘Japan’s Richest’ list for 2009. This is despite his net worth falling by the odd US$200 million to US$5.2 billion since 2008. Sankyo has been busy updating its image to keep in line with the tastes of a younger generation of players seeking Western-style glamour. In 2008, Sankyo hired Hollywood star Nicholas Cage to appear in a series of television commercials in Japan, playing the role of a pachinko aficionado. Other innovations to modernise the industry’s offer to customers include pachinko parlours with bars and cafés and some with women-only sections. Last year, an analyst’s report suggested the pachinko industry across Japan employs around 300,000 people—more people than even Japan’s steel industry. Mr Busujima senior originally worked for rival pachinko manufacturer Heiwa, the company that helped launch pachinko in Japan after World War II. He witnessed the growth of pachinko manufacturing from a “cottage industry” into an innovative modern one. Inthe1970s,MrBusujimacontributedto the revolution of pachinko manufacturing by inventing the immensely popular “Sankyo Fever” machine. His creation prompted a new wave of advances in pachinko design that used high-tech, state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment and techniques. Asian Gaming 50 – 2009 Kunio Busujima is another of the ‘ pachinko billionaires’ on this year’s list. They are men who first got rich from the Japanese craze for this pinball-like machine. While some of the pachinko ‘kings’ have used their riches to branch