The Japanese government endorsed last Friday an Integrated Resorts (IR) Implementation Bill, which now needs to be voted by the Diet, the country’s parliament.
Kyodo News reported that the Japanese government aimed for the bill to pass the Diet during the ongoing session through June 20.
Melco Resorts has declared itself a contender for a Japan casino licence.
“With Japan, it’s always a lot of consensus building. I’ve been lobbying there for over 12 years and I am very respectful of the process they want to take, and we are very interested. If it takes two years, five or 10 years from now, I’ll be there… because we are so committed to it,” Ho added.
According to him, assuming that the IR Implementation Bill gets passed in the Diet within this year, “they still need time to draft the laws, set up the gaming commission, all the compliance and regulatory areas, and still pick the cities. So I think the soonest that the bidding process can really start is probably end of next year or even 2020,” he added.
The gaming executive told Bloomberg that “other than Macau, Japan is the greatest opportunity … that’s why we commit so much effort to it, and we have offices in Tokyo and Osaka”.
Source: GMB / GGR Asia
