Inside Asian Gaming

IAG JAN 2023年1月 亞博匯 110 10 YEARS AGO T he Japanese term “nemawashi” means “going around the roots”, as in preparing a tree for transplanting. As Inside Asian Gaming explained in the cover story of our 2013 issue, the equivalent in English would be along the lines of “laying the groundwork” or “building consensus” – describing a largely informal but critical element of the process of legislating major social or economic change in Japan. “Usually conducted behind the scenes, ‘nemawashi’ can be a long and painstaking affair, as anyone even remotely familiar with the inherent conservatism of Japanese culture and its famously fractious politics might expect, and as the casino camp, which has numbered some fairly powerful individuals over the years, knows only too well.” Sound familiar? At the time of IAG ’s cover story, titled “Backwards into