If the murmurings emanating from the nation’s parliament are to be believed, Thailand could well be on the verge of realizing a dream few ever believed would become a reality by legalizing casino gaming.
A recent report submitted by a special parliamentary committee recommended the development of up to five casinos nationwide, to be complemented by various non-gaming attractions aimed at boosting Thailand’s tourism appeal. More importantly, the idea appears to have garnered both bipartisan support and widespread public approval – an important footnote ahead of the upcoming general election in May.
But at a time when Thailand and Japan remain as the final two frontiers on Asia’s gaming landscape, there are important lessons Thai authorities must glean from the experience of their Japanese contemporaries.
Like Thailand, Japan was also a late bloomer when it came to the introduction of casino and integrated resort legislation, finally passing its long-awaited IR Promotion Bill – which effectively legalized casinos – in 2016 and its IR Implementation Bill – which set out their terms of operation – two years later in 2018.
The prospect of winning one of the three IR licenses on offer in Japan created huge industry excitement, with analysts estimating the nation’s IRs could generate a combined US$20 billion annually. At the Japan Gaming Congress in May 2018, more than 20 operators and 600 delegates from all corners of the globe made their way to Conrad Tokyo to brush up on latest developments, secure important local connections and stake their claim for a piece of this golden gaming pie.
Yet fast forward five years and that early excitement has well and truly fizzled out. Despite more than 12 cities and prefectures expressing interest in hosting an integrated resort early on in the process, only two – Osaka and Nagasaki – ultimately submitted proposals to Japan’s central government, while those 20-plus operators had been whittled down to a mere handful by the time the host candidates chose their operator partners (MGM Resorts for Osaka and Casinos Austria for Nagasaki).
So what went wrong? Who killed Japan’s golden goose? Ultimately, there were a handful of key factors at play – perhaps most telling among them a distinct lack of cooperation from the Japanese government with its prospective operators in what should have been a true PPP (Public Private Partnership). With almost all operational criteria, such as tax rates, casino floor space and costs, having been set without any real industry input, most operators decided the potential ROI no longer represented an appealing opportunity.
Also impeding the birth of IRs was the failure of governments – both national and local – to properly explain to their citizens exactly what an IR is and how it can benefit a community. The resulting public backlash played a key role in early candidate locations like Yokohama and Hokkaido pulling out.
Finally, the process of submitting a bid – with operators first having to partner with a host city before jointly applying to the central government – was in itself overly complicated, not to mention costly and time consuming. Even now, a year after Osaka and Nagasaki submitted their bids in April 2022, the government has offered no evidence it’s even close to making a decision on whether those bids have been successful.
Compare this to the Singapore experience, where the government not only managed to turn public opinion in its favor; it ran a clear and concise tender process that resulted in some of Asia’s most successful and iconic integrated resorts.
Like Japan, Thailand is attracting the interest of the world’s largest integrated resort operators – the likes of Las Vegas Sands and Wynn Resorts – but it would do well to take a close look at Japan to avoid making the same mistakes.
Ben Blaschke
Managing Editor
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