Speaking at the Jefferies Global Consumer Conference last Monday, MGM Resorts International Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Halkyard said the U.S.-based group expects to be one of the first casino operators in Japan.
Earlier this year, MGM and local partner Orix Corp. submitted an application to develop and run an integrated resort (IR) license in the country. Their plan is to develop a $8 billion resort with a casino on Yumeshima Island on Osaka Bay.
A total of three IR licenses were up for grabs in the industry’s first phase, but only two prefectures, Osaka and Nagasaki, submitted bids by the April 28 deadline.
Halkyard said MGM Resorts had “been working on Japan for many years,” and expects good news from the central government “in the September time frame.”
“We would then be underway as we get into 2023,” he said. “This is a large project; it’s going to take a number of years to complete.”
He added, “We think it’s a massive market opportunity for the company … and is going to be just a phenomenal integrated resort with strong returns.”
Earlier this month, an anti-casino group in Osaka announced that it had collected more than 208,000 signatures and submitted them to the prefecture’s Election Administration Commission, hoping to compel a referendum on the IR. Osaka city council had already rejected an earlier attempt to have a referendum on the topic, according to GGRAsia.
The only other bidder, which includes Casinos Austria and its local partners, filed an IR application in Nagasaki. They plan a resort complex adjacent to the Huis Ten Bosch theme park in Sasebo City.
