{"id":24024,"date":"2021-10-29T07:12:46","date_gmt":"2021-10-29T10:12:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=24024"},"modified":"2026-04-23T14:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T17:20:10","slug":"cnmi-could-allow-5-casino-licences-on-saipan-through-a-new-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/cnmi-could-allow-5-casino-licences-on-saipan-through-a-new-bill","title":{"rendered":"CNMI could allow 5 casino licences on Saipan through a new bill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A bill introduced by CNMI lawmaker Ralph N. Yumul would allow five casino licences on Saipan if IPI\u2019s exclusive licence is finally revoked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Northern Mariana Islands.-\u00a0<strong>Ralph N. Yumul, house floor leader<\/strong>, has introduced a bill to allow five casino licences in Saipan. According to Yumul, as\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/ccc-seeks-immediate-revocation-of-ipi-casino-licence\">IPI<\/a>\u00a0has not been able to pay taxes and its US$15m exclusive licence fee,<strong>\u00a0the island needs more than one operator<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said: &#8220;Tying the fate of the retirees\u2019 pension to one single industry was risky, it was even more dangerous to tie the funding for the retirees\u2019 pension to an exclusive licensee.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mariana&#8217;s Variety revealed that<strong>\u00a0the bill also mandates that the casinos operating in the Third Senatorial District provide licence fees to pay 25 per cent of pension benefits<\/strong>\u00a0to all the retirees in the district, reducing reliance on funds generated from the Casino Gross Revenue Tax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yumul said that if there were five casino licences each with an annual fee of US$5m, it would result in a total of US$25m, which is US$10m more than what is being required by the current bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In June,\u00a0<strong>Andrew Yeom<\/strong>, the\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/ccc-calls-for-more-casinos-on-saipan-to-increase-funds\">CCC\u2019s executive director<\/a>, has also expressed a preference for more licensees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A bill introduced by CNMI lawmaker Ralph N. Yumul would allow five casino licences on Saipan if IPI\u2019s exclusive licence is finally revoked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":22521,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"A bill introduced in the CNMI proposes allowing five casino licenses on Saipan, contingent on the revocation of IPI's exclusive license due to non-payment of fees. This initiative aims to diversify revenue streams for retiree pensions, moving from a single operator model to a multi-license framework with increased annual fees.","focusai_entities":"IPI, Ralph N. Yumul, Andrew Yeom, CCC","focusai_location":"Northern Mariana Islands, Saipan","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (0.8), operator_casino (1.0), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"IPI License Revocation?","query":"What is the current legal status and projected timeline for the revocation of IPI's exclusive casino license, and what are the specific conditions precedent for the new multi-license framework to be enacted?"},{"label":"New License Criteria?","query":"Beyond the proposed US$5M annual fee, what specific regulatory compliance, capital adequacy, and operational experience criteria will be established for prospective applicants for the five new casino licenses?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,157,158],"tags":[14213,22674],"class_list":["post-24024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-business-news","category-slider-home","tag-imperial-pacific","tag-ipi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24024"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24058,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24024\/revisions\/24058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}