{"id":30481,"date":"2022-06-06T06:35:57","date_gmt":"2022-06-06T09:35:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=30481"},"modified":"2026-04-23T08:03:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T11:03:49","slug":"online-casinos-will-remain-illegal-says-japans-prime-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/online-casinos-will-remain-illegal-says-japans-prime-minister","title":{"rendered":"Online casinos will remain illegal, says Japan\u2019s prime minister"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Fumio Kishida has said that he will not accept online casino despite allowing the development of integrated resorts in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Japan.- The<strong> prime minister of Japan<\/strong> has ruled out the possibility of allowing online casino gaming in the country. At a meeting with the budget committee of the lower house last Wednesday,\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/japans-next-prime-minister-in-favour-of-ir-developments\" target=\"_blank\">Fumio Kishida<\/a> said <strong>online casinos would not be legalised <\/strong>and that efforts to combat illegal gambling would be strengthened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Issei Yamagishi<\/strong>, a councilman of the Constitutional Democratic Party, had told the prime minister that the number of online casino players reached 2 million in 2020 and that the number of inquiries connected to online casinos has been increasing. He asked Kishida which authority regulates online casinos in Japan, to which the prime minister responded that several agencies and ministries controlled the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yamagishi had also asked the prime minister if there were any specific measures to combat addiction. Kishida replied that there were<strong>\u00a0measures to prevent addiction to legal gambling<\/strong>, but since online casinos are illegal, work focuses on preventing the sites rather than combating potential addiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Concerns related to integrated resorts were also raised at the meeting. Yamagishi claimed that unless the government can deal with online casinos, it will not be ready to deal with the potential social problems brought by IRs. However, Kishida said the government was ready to regulate IRs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The application window for Japan\u2019s proposed three integrated resort licences has passed with\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/japan-only-2-locations-submit-ir-proposals\" target=\"_blank\">only two bids submitted<\/a>. The two contenders are\u00a0<strong>Osaka\u00a0<\/strong>and\u00a0<strong>Nagasaki<\/strong>. They both submitted IR District Development Plans that were approved by their city councils and then prefectural assemblies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Japan\u2019s Casino Regulatory Commission\u00a0<\/strong>will listen to public feedback regarding its casino operator screening criteria until June 17. Authorities said public comments will be taken into account when the process of issuing casino licences begins.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fumio Kishida has said that he will not accept online casino despite allowing the development of integrated resorts in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":19199,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has unequivocally stated that online casino gaming will not be legalized in the country, despite the ongoing development of Integrated Resorts. He affirmed a commitment to strengthening efforts against illegal gambling and addressing social concerns related to both illicit online activities and future IR operations. The Casino Regulatory Commission is currently soliciting public feedback on operator screening criteria for the two submitted IR bids from Osaka and Nagasaki.","focusai_entities":"Fumio Kishida, Issei Yamagishi, Constitutional Democratic Party, Japan\u2019s Casino Regulatory Commission","focusai_location":"Japan, Osaka, Nagasaki","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.95), regulator (0.98), compliance_legal (0.95), operator_casino (0.95), tech_data (0.7), payments_fraud_aml (0.75), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.9), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"IR Licensing Impact","query":"How will the definitive exclusion of online casinos influence the financial viability and projected GGR of the proposed Integrated Resorts in Osaka and Nagasaki, particularly concerning the government's stated readiness to regulate IRs?"},{"label":"Illegal Market Strategy","query":"What specific enhanced measures and inter-agency coordination frameworks will the Japanese government implement to effectively combat the reported 2 million online casino players and disrupt the illicit online gambling market, given the Prime Minister's directive?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16338,156],"tags":[23911,23632],"class_list":["post-30481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-asia-news","category-regulation-news","tag-gambling-regulation","tag-integrated-resorts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30481","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=30481"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30491,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30481\/revisions\/30491"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}