Osaka IR won’t open before 2025

The Mayor of Osaka advanced the government won’t fulfill its expected IR opening date set for 2025 or earlier and pushed it back to 2026.

Japan.- The Japanese casino industry will soon be live and is set to turn into a major hub in Asia. That’s why most governments in the country are pushing to get one of the three authorisations for gaming venues.

One of the top candidates is Osaka, which had plans to open its IR before the 2025 World Expo. However, the Mayor has revealed the Yumeshima venue won’t be ready by then after all.

“If we are working together and then impose an unreasonable condition, we couldn’t really call ourselves ‘partners,’” he said. As quoted by AGBrief, the official explained their original goal was unrealistic and pushed it back to 2026.

“Our efforts would be meaningless if no firm accepts the public tender,” Osaka Governor Hirofumi Yoshimura added.

IR timeline

The casino industry is getting closer each day to Japan and IR  developments will soon arrive. The initiative has taken another step further as the Japan Tourism Agency announced further details on the licensing schedule.

The Agency explained it will accept proposals from local governments between January 4 and July 30, 2021. Therefore, we can expect Japan regions to pick IR consortium partners in late 2020 and early 2021.

The Agency also disclosed it has conducted consultations with interested governments. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government, prefectures of Nagasaki, Osaka, and Wakayama; and the cities of Chiba, Nagoya, Osaka, and Yokohama contacted them. Hokkaido was also interested in an IR development, but seems to be out of it.