Akihabara News (Tokyo) — The governments of Osaka and Nagasaki have submitted applications to the central government to have their respective Integrated Resorts (IR), including casinos, licensed for operations under the terms of the 2018 IR Implementation Act.
The results of the licensing bids are expected to be revealed in the latter months of this year.
If both of them are granted licenses, then the ¥438 billion (US$3.4 billion) facility at the Huis Ten Bosch theme park in Sasebo, Nagasaki, is expected to open first—in autumn 2027. The consortium behind this project is led by Casinos Austria International, a public-sector European firm.
The much larger ¥1.08 trillion (US$8.4 billion) Integrated Resort at Osaka Yumeshima would open about two years later near the end of 2029. This project is led jointly by MGM Resorts International and the Orix Corporation.
The IR Implementation Act allows for a maximum of three licenses to be issued, but in the end only two applicants remain standing in what had once been thought likely to become a highly competitive process.
In this connection, word has finally arrived that both of the mulled IR projects in Aichi Prefecture—the one sponsored by Governor Hideaki Omura for Chubu Centrair International Airport Island in Tokoname city as well as the one mulled by Nagoya Mayor Takashi Kawamura for his city—have been abandoned due to the Covid pandemic and insufficient interest from potential operators.
Similarly, Tokyo never made a decision for or against an IR initiative, but clearly has no intention of meeting tomorrow’s application deadline.
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