The Japanese government completed Tuesday another important task paving the way for the development of the nation’s first integrated resorts with casinos
During a Tuesday meeting, the Cabinet approved the standards developers will have to fulfill when building their MICE properties. Japanese lawmakers want the first three such properties to be operational by the mid-2020s.
The preferred developers of the integrated resorts will have to allocate more than 100,000 square meters of accommodation space for guests. Lawmakers cited a resort with 2,000 standard rooms of 40 square meters and 500 suites of 70 square meters as an ideal plan.
With the recently approved hotel size requirement, Japan will see the development of hotels much larger than those it currently has. The country’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, said Tuesday that they want resorts of “unprecedentedly large scale and high quality.”
Developers will also have to make sure that their conference and exhibition facilities meet the requirements adopted by legislators during their Tuesday meeting. The integrated resorts will have to feature a 120,000-square-meter exhibition hall, or a conference room with room for more than 6,000 people, or a hybrid design with both a 60,000-square-meter convention hall and a conference room that holds 3,000 people.
Other Requirements
Japan’s first casinos will have to occupy no more than 3% of the total floor area of the integrated resorts they will be part of. Lawmakers also approved Tuesday requirements over the advertising of casino gambling in the country.
Casino ads will only be allowed within the integrated resorts as well as at the immigration areas of the nation’s airports and seaports. Advertising of casino gambling anywhere else will be strictly prohibited as part of the government’s efforts to reduce the impact of expanded gambling on residents of the country.
To prevent money laundering, the future casinos will be required to report chip exchanges of more than JPY1 million (just over $9,000). That threshold is significantly lower than the one imposed at Macau casinos, where transactions of over MOP500,000 (approximately $61,900) are reported, and on par with Singapore at S$10,000 (approx. $7,400) and Nevada at $10,000.
The Japanese government will now set up a casino management commission that will lay out the rules under which casinos will operate. Lawmakers legalized casino gambling in 2016 and confirmed last summer that three gaming licenses will be issued in the first wave of market liberalization.
The preferred locations that will host the integrated resorts with their casinos and the preferred developers of the properties are yet to be selected. As mentioned above, the cabinet targets mid-2020s opening of the luxury MICE complexes.
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