Japan Diet Starts Deliberations on Casino Bill

May 23, 2018

Tokyo- The Diet, Japan's parliament, started deliberations on a bill to introduce casino-featuring integrated resorts (IRs) at a plenary meeting of the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

The bill calls for allowing up to three IRs, which will also include international convention centers, tourism facilities and hotels, to be set up in the country and charging Japanese visitors 6,000 yen per entry.

The Liberal Democratic Party-led ruling coalition aims to get the bill enacted by the end of the ongoing regular Diet session on June 20. But the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and other opposition parties oppose it, arguing that gambling addiction could spread among Japanese people.

IRs will be "comprehensive resorts to disseminate (information on) Japan's attractions to the world and are expected to have great effects on tourism, regional development and job creation," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at the Lower House meeting.

The bill includes "perfect measures" to prevent gambling addiction, Abe said. Besides the entrance fee, it also calls for limiting the weekly and monthly numbers of casino visits by Japanese people to three and 10, respectively.

But Tomoko Abe of the CDPJ pointed out that there are people already addicted to "pachinko" pinballs and other existing gambling games in the country. "I doubt that casinos are necessary in this situation," she said. Jiji Press