Casino operators aren’t the only ones vying to get the first casino in Japan. Cities in the Land of the Rising Sun are already planning for the time when the country officially opens its arms to casinos.
The Japanese city of Osaka has already gotten the ball rolling after Governor Ichiro Matsui told Reuters that the city is already planning to designate a site for a proposed casino in the city. The plot of reclaimed land on Osaka Bay, called Yumeshima, is expected to be dangled to casino operators when Osaka officials convene for an April 22 meeting to discuss the issue.
It’s a pretty tasty piece of real estate considering there’s about 170 hectares (420 acres) of land available for development. “It’s about time that as a city we narrow down the candidate sites,” Matsui told Reuters. “We have reached the point where we need to start accepting proposals.”
A big part of Matsui’s vision is to see a casino complex that can provide a variety of entertainment and gambling options that will complement features of the locality such as the region’s famous line of cuisines.
Osaka’s initiative to designate a casino spot will be music to the ears of some of the biggest foreign casino operators, some of whom have already made their intentions known that they’re willing to drop a whole lot of money for a casino project.
It’s an approach that another other major city in Japan – that would be you, Tokyo – has yet to accomplish. There’s talk that the Odaiba area in Tokyo Bay has been brought up as a preferred location for a casino, but unlike Matsui’s public declaration of his willingness to have a casino in his city, Tokyo Governor Yoichi Masuzoe has yet to do the same.
That’s not an indictment on Masuzoe, and there’s a good chance that he’s going to get more pro-active on the matter once the casino bill passes.
