The road to a new gaming industry in Japan has been filled with roadblocks, primarily the Covid-19 pandemic, which took the steam out of some operators’ Asian investment plans.
Now a new challenge faces MGM Resorts and Orix Corp., the leaders of a consortium planning to develop a $9.1 billion integrated resort (IR) on Yumeshima Island in Osaka Bay: on May 26, several private citizens’ groups announced that they had collected more than enough signatures to get a referendum on the issue.
According to Inside Asian Gaming, from March to May the groups collected at least 146,000 names, or 2 percent of the voting populace, as required by law. Group leaders say the petition exceeded that minimum, with 157,000 signatures.
A representative of the groups said, “There is a disconnect between the opinions of the council and the people, and the peoples’ voices are not being heard. If the development plan is approved, the local municipalities and operating company will finally be linked up. This petition will stand in the way of concluding any agreements.”
The move is not unprecedented. In January 2021, an anti-casino group submitted a petition for a referendum regarding an IR bid in Yokohama. It had 190,000 signatures—three times the required number. The petition went before the city council, which did not approve a referendum. But the IR plan ground to a halt when anti-IR candidate Takeharu Yamanaka won the mayoral election last August.
In January of this year, Wakayama voted on a referendum for its IR bid. While the city didn’t hold the referendum, the Wakayama IR bid—led by Canadian private equity firm Clairvest Group—later died in the prefectural assembly due to lack of transparency about funding.
If the Osaka IR is not similarly derailed and the central government approves the proposal, the resort complex is scheduled to open in the second half of 2029.
The anti-casino petition now goes to the Election Administration Committee. If the signatures are verified, casino opponents can demand that Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura call for a vote. The governor would then call a prefectural assembly and submit an ordinance. But according to Inside Asian Gaming, an ordinance of that nature would be unlikely to pass in the assembly, as the locally dominant Ishin and Komeito parties support the IR bid.
Meanwhile, in welcome news for Japanese tourism, the country will reopen to visitors from 98 countries starting June 10. For the first time in more than two years, no vaccines will be mandated, though Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced that all incoming tourists would have to be part of a tour group, at least for now.
“Active exchanges between people are the foundation of the economy and society,” Kishida said at the Future of Asia conference in Tokyo last month. “From the 10th of next month, we will restart the admission of tourists on guided package tours.”
Tourists will be classified into one of three groups based on their country of origin. Those in the 98-country Group Blue, which includes China, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, the United States, the U.K., New Zealand and Thailand, will require no vaccination, no PCR testing upon arrival and no hotel quarantine.
Group Yellow, which includes most African and Eastern European nations as well as Portugal, Sri Lanka, North Korea and Saudi Arabia, will require a negative test and three days of home quarantine, although neither is required if they show a valid vaccination certificate. Travelers from Group Red countries such as Albania, Fiji, Pakistan and Sierra Leone must observe a mandatory home quarantine.
Japan welcomed more than 100,000 monthly visitors in April, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization. The former maximum of 10,000 visitor arrivals per day was doubled to 20,000 on June 1.
