Japanese minister visited Macau to study IRs

The Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism travelled to the Cotai Strip to study how IRs work in Macau.

Japan.- Casinos will soon land in Japan but the authorities want to do it right. That’s why the government continues to assess all factors to try and cover all bases before opening integrated resorts (IRs).

Following said intentions, the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Keiichi Ishii travelled to Macau to assess IRs. The official visited Melco’s City of Dreams and Wynn Palace in the Cotai Strip for research purposes.

Approved standards

Japan’s Cabinet approved in March standards for casino resorts, which require them to be built with big-scale hotels, far larger than currently exist in the country. Conference rooms and exhibition halls are also requirements for the integrated resorts.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told a government meeting before the Cabinet’s approval that the country will aim for casino resorts of “unprecedentedly large scale and high quality”. The government aims to have three integrated resorts open at three locations by mid-2020s.

Projections for the segment

Depending on the location of the upcoming IRs in Japan, the facilities could generate between €4.5 billion and €8 billion in gaming revenue every year. This is according to Fitch Ratings, which believes that the three IRs can generate successful numbers.

The rating agency said in its All In: Global Gaming Handbook that it projects Japan’s large-scale IRs in major metro areas to generate approximately €2.5 billion of gaming revenue each. Fitch Rating’s estimations for more remote locations are approximately €1.1 billion in gaming gross revenue (GGR).