Taiwan’s parliament is expected in December to reopen discussions on a bill regulate casino gaming on the country’s offshore islands.
“Taiwan will have local elections on November 29. After that, lawmakers have to go back to work and review the bills with higher priority, including the casino draft law,” said Liu Day-Yang director of the Centre for the Study of Lottery and Commercial Gaming at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology.
The timetable means the legislation could be approved before June 2015.
Casinos are subject to local approvals, however, and so far, of the island groups of Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu, all located in the Taiwan Strait between Taiwan and China, only the residents of Matsu have voted to approve them.
“I believe the Matsu county legislator will try to push for the bill to be passed,” he said. “In the most optimistic scenario, the draft law could be passed in the first half of 2015,” Liu said.
He added that a number of foreign operators have already expressed interest in making a bid for any of the casino licenses the government plans to issue.
The legislation as drafted would create a national regulatory agency to oversee the industry. The agency would issue 15-year licenses requiring operators to pay a 7 percent tax on revenues to the local government and 7 percent to the central government.
If the legislation passes, the first integrated resort may be completed by 2019, potentially drawing an initial 5 million tourists annually into the region.
