Inside Asian Gaming

IAG MAY 2023年5月 亞博匯 82 10 YEARS AGO player, the Philippines is quickly emerging as the second largest gaming jurisdiction in Asia, with GGR tipped to reach US$10 billion by 2027. While IAG accurately tipped the rise of the Philippines, Singapore, Cambodia (via NagaWorld) and to some extent South Korea in our 2013 cover story, we also pointed to a handful of jurisdictions that could truly drive Asian gaming revenues forward but whose short-term ambitions remained cloudy. On Japan we wrote, “Given Japan’s sizable urban population and high propensity to gamble, the viability of casinos in the world’s third- largest economy has never been in doubt, and global names of the likes of Las Vegas Sands and Genting have expressed interest in investing a lot of money. Investment brokers CLSA Asia- Pacific Markets estimate that one resort-scale casino in Tokyo and one in Osaka or another major city could be worth at least US$10 billion a year, easily surpassing the US$5.9 billion Singapore’s two resort casinos generated in 2012 and the $6.2 billion booked on the Las Vegas Strip last year.” As we now know, only Osaka and Nagasaki are in the running to develop an integrated resort, and only Osaka’s IR, recently given the green light to proceed, has the scale to compete regionally. On Sri Lanka we wrote, “James Packer has acquired land in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo for what is reported to