Two US billionaires are betting on rival cities, Tokyo and Osaka, to be the first in Japan to open casino resorts — once the government gives the go-ahead to legalize gambling.
Japan is one of the world’s last untapped gaming markets and could become the third-largest gambling destination after Macau and the US, with annual revenue of more than US$40 billion, broker CLSA has said.
Japanese lawmakers who support legalizing casino gambling hope to see initial draft legislation this year, with the first resort opening by 2020, when Tokyo is to host the Olympic Games.
Photo: Reuters
In a race for first-mover advantage, 76-year-old Chicago real-estate mogul Neil Bluhm has set his sights on Osaka, while Las Vegas gaming tycoon Sheldon Adelson, four years his senior, is putting his weight behind a Tokyo flagship resort.
Bluhm, who owns casinos in Pennsylvania, Chicago and Niagara Falls, has a net worth of US$2.6 billion, according to Forbes. He believes Osaka, one of Chicago’s “sister cities,” has the kind of flexible local government that will help drive this project, and, crucially, has “shovel-ready” sites.
He says the whole process — from approval to construction — in Tokyo would be more complex, time-consuming and expensive.
While Adelson has not ruled out pitching for Osaka, he sees Tokyo as the main prize, given its highly affluent population of 13.2 million. The CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corp, who Forbes says is worth close to US$39 billion, has pledged to spend US$10 billion as Japan opens up to legal gambling — an offer he says his rivals cannot match.
Sands, which has casinos in Macau, Singapore and Las Vegas, remains bullish on its Japan plans given the country’s wealthy population and proximity to China.
“We are very confident in our ability to generate a return that would be satisfactory to our shareholders,” George Tanasijevich, managing director for global development, said in a telephone interview.
He did not elaborate.
Bluhm shrugs off rivals’ talk of big spending.
“Sometimes people like to throw big numbers around in order to get picked... We have been more for Osaka in the US$4 billion to US$5 billion range,” he said.
Bluhm also reckons he may have an edge over the big operators in Macau — who he thinks likely prefer Tokyo — by working alongside local partners.
“In reality, they are going to want to totally run the project. They are probably not used to having partnership relationships like we are,” he said.
Osaka’s government is keen for foreign operators to use Japanese firms in a consortium or joint venture, said Masayuki Inoue, director general of the city’s economic strategy bureau, adding that Osaka wants a large casino resort with convention and entertainment facilities.
“Osaka is flexible. We’re ready to discuss anything,” he said.
The Kansai Keizai Doyukai, a leading local business lobby, thinks land costs in Osaka will be a tenth of those in the capital, about 250km to the northeast. And, it says, the city can offer a development area three times bigger than that occupied by Singapore’s two casino resorts — Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa.
In comparison, officials in Tokyo, already setting about preparing for the 2020 Olympics, appear more tortoise than hare.
Industry executives worry privately that Tokyo is so focused on getting the Olympics right that there’s little momentum driving the casino issue. Tokyo Governor Yoichi Masuzoe, a former Japanese health minister, has yet to say whether he will seek a casino license for the capital.
“We’re not like Osaka and Yokohama. We have not stepped on the accelerator and said let’s go,” said Yukimasa Saito, an official at the governor’s office.
A waterfront area called Odaiba in Tokyo Bay has been touted by executives and officials as a preferred location for any casino resort in the capital, but securing enough land could prove a challenge.
At present, about 14 hectares are available for sale by the city behind the headquarters of TV broadcaster Fuji Media Holdings. Doubling that would require re-zoning parks and buying land currently owned by a real-estate developer and Toyota Motor Corp, said an official in Tokyo’s waterfront development division.
The department sparked concern among some casino watchers about Tokyo’s intentions last month when it said it would auction a 2.7-hectare plot in the Odaiba area for a 10-year lease — effectively taking the lot out of the equation for casino resort developers.
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
RSS