Inside Asian Gaming

IAG JUN 2019年6月 亞博匯 36 JAPAN mention the rather ambitions 2024 launch date touted by officials in Osaka. While MGM Resorts Japan CEO Ed Bowers has maintained a positive outlook in the weeks since – telling a gathering of locals he expected the delay would be “only a few months” and unlikely to have a big impact – others aren’t so sure. Amid rumours that it could be as long as February 2020 before the fundamental policy is finally released, Morgan Stanley equity analyst Praveen Choudhary says of Osaka, “It is impossible to open before 2025. “The reason is not that Osaka isn’t doing everything it can,” he explains, “but there are several regulatory processes that need to be signed before they can even start, so time is very much against them.” The process to bring Japan’s IRs to life already looms as an exhausting one, notwithstanding the fact that it remains on hold until the Ministry for Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism releases the fundamental policy in question. Only then can local governments get to work, with key tasks including announcing their own policy guidelines, launching an RFP process, selecting an operator partner and submitting an IR District Development Plan – all then requiring national government approval before they can be enacted. Osaka, for its part, is already trying to gain a head start by launching a Request for Concept in April, prompting Choudhary to suggest the city may in fact be granted an IR license before any other location, followed a year or two later by the likes of Tokyo or Yokohama who are yet to commit to any IR bid. Timing isn’t the only concern for operators, with the increasingly large numbers being thrown about – Melco Resorts Executive Vice President and CFO Geoffrey Davis touted a figure “comfortably exceeding” US$10 billion – sparking questions over financing. The issues here are two-fold. From a profitability perspective, it is by now well known that Japan’s IRs will be among the most tightly regulated – and heavily taxed MGM Resorts Japan CEO Ed Bowers at last month’s Japan Gaming Congress. 日本美高梅首席執行官Ed Bowers上月在日本娛樂展會。