Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming FEBRUARY 2016 42 Vietnam relaxes restrictions on casino cruises Da Nang, the chief port of central Vietnam, has become the first in the country to allow visiting cruise ships to keep their casinos open after docking. International liners have traditionally shuttered onboard gambling after arrival in the country. But in mid-January, the Da Nang Tourism Department’s deputy director Tran Chi Cuong said he had found “no rules that require foreign ships to close certain services when docking in Vietnam,” and the restrictions would therefore be lifted. The ultimate goal, he said, was to encourage more cruise lines to put his city on their itineraries. According to local media, the change came about following lobbying from Asia’s largest cruise operator Genting. Executives of the company’s Hong Kong-based subsidiary Star Cruises had apparently been meeting with officials from Da Nang and Quang Ninh Province (famous for Ha Long Bay), as well as officers from the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism. Da Nang expects to receive 110 vessels from the company this year, against a 27.5% increase in overall foreign arrivals by sea in 2015. Given burgeoning growth in Asia’s cruise industry, the numbers are sure to continue growing. Vietnam now only allows foreign passport holders to enter its eight land-based casinos. Keeping onboard gambling open will not change the prohibition on locals, because Vietnamese law views international cruise ships as foreign territory. To get on board, Vietnamese citizens will therefore have to undergo immigration procedures, as they would if they went to casinos in Cambodia. Japanese casinos still some way off Prospects for legislation that would allow casinos in Japan have received yet another setback. For years now, lawmakers in Japan have been toying with the passage of a so-called Integrated Resort promotion bill that would amend the constitution to allow, in principle, the construction of casino-driven integrated resorts. That would pave the way for a second more detailed bill, spelling out the law on gambling industry management. At the end of last year the newspaper Hokkaido Shimbun quoted senior officials in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) saying there was “no chance” of the IR bill passing in the ordinary Diet session commencing at the beginning of this year, as there was “no time for it” before this summer’s elections in the legislature’s upper house. Meanwhile, an executive in the LDP’s more conservative coalition partner Komeito Party said there was no reason to pass the bill before the elections. “The bill is frozen until the Autumn extraordinary Diet session,” he added. Since discussion on reversing Japan’s casino law first emerged in 2002, therefore, doing so has been postponed yet again, and can only now take place late this year at the very earliest. Tokyo’s selection as host of the 2020 Summer Olympics in 2013 provided impetus to the push for casinos, with proponents arguing they would serve as an extra draw for visiting spectators. But in October last year, analysts at investment bank Union Gaming said the earliest any integrated resort would start operations in Japan was probably 2022. Taiwan election results a setback for offshore casinos Taiwan has elected its nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Tsai Ing-wen as president, and also voted the DPP into control of the legislature. The results are a setback for efforts to build Taiwanese casinos because Tsai spoke against allowing gambling during her election campaign. Seven years ago she also instructed legislators to vote against a law that would allow gaming referenda on offshore islands. The attitude of China, whose citizens would be the target customers of Taiwanese casinos, should make matters worse. Cooperation with mainland authorities would be needed to organize cross-strait gambling trips. But relations between the two sides look certain to sour given Tsai’s independence-leaning, anti- China stance. Even under her predecessor Ma Ying-jeou, who was seen as pro-Beijing, mainland authorities were opposed to allowing gambling visits to Taiwan. In a recent note, Union Gaming said Macau’s “Big 6” gaming operators would likely stay away from any Request for Proposals from Taiwan to build casinos out of fear of upsetting the Beijing government. The slumping regional market, caused by a slowing mainland economy and president Xi Jinping’s ongoing campaign REGIONAL BRIEFS Da Nang , Vietnam’s third largest city