Japanese officials say they will use profits from the MGM Osaka, the nation’s first integrated casino-resort, to pay for betting addiction treatment programs.
At a briefing session last week, Osaka Prefecture officials joined their counterparts from Osaka City to address criticism from anti-gambling advocates. Activists claim the IR, which is set to open in 2030, will drive up betting addiction in Osaka.
Critics are concerned by claims that the IR will generate up to 80% of its revenue from casino sales, the Japanese media outlet Goraku Sangyo reported.
MGM Osaka’s developers, MGM Resorts and the Japanese conglomerate Orix, will charge Japanese casino customers a 6,000 yen ($37) entrance fee.
Prefectural officials said they plan to use a portion of the entrance fee and table revenues to “allocate approximately 1.4 billion yen ($8.6 million) a year to measures that will fight gambling addiction.”
MGM Osaka Casino: Attendees Voice Earthquake Worries
During a question-and-answer session, residents also raised concerns about a possible “mega-earthquake.”
Osaka is located around 150km away from the Nankai Trough, a huge area where the Philippine Sea Plate slides under the Eurasian Plate.
The Earthquake Research Committee has estimated there is an 80 to 90% chance the trough will produce an earthquake with a magnitude of between seven and nine sometime in the next 30 years.
Critics said that if a quake occurs near the IR site, the MGM Osaka would be destroyed. One individual present at the briefing session urged the prefecture to halt the IR construction project.
The prefecture gave a non-committal response, saying that it is listening to “various opinions” on the matter.
One attendee asked why Orix and MGM officials had not joined the briefing sessions, calling the prefecture’s explanations “insufficient.”
The prefecture responded that the goal of the sessions was to “build regional consensus” for the IR project. Officials reiterated that operators would not join future sessions.
50,000 Customers Will Visit IR Every Day, Say Officials
The officials also faced questions about projected visitor numbers. MGM Osaka and prefectural spokespeople say that 50,000 customers will visit the IR each day (20 million per year).
An attendee asked the prefecture how it had calculated these figures.
The officials said MGM Osaka had created the estimate after “studying data from Japanese demographic statistics, statistics on foreign visitors to Japan, and existing IR facilities overseas.”
Developers broke ground on the IR in October last year. They are building the complex on approximately 49.2 hectares of land designated for the artificial island of Yumeshima in Osaka Bay.
The IR will feature three hotels, each with around 2,500 rooms. It will also include an international conference center with a capacity of over 6,000.
Osaka officials say that casino floor space will be limited to within 3% of the entire IR site (about 70,000 square meters).
MGM Resorts, Orix, and other consortium members expect to make an initial investment of over $9.3 billion.
A 35-Year Casino Concession
Osaka will grant MGM Osaka a 35-year, extendable concession. The company says it is aiming for annual sales of approximately $3.2 billion.
Only $617 million of this total will come from non-gaming sales, however.
Last month, MGM Osaka officials warned that several illegal online casino websites claiming affiliation with the IR project are now targeting Japanese users.
Online casinos are illegal in Japan. Even visiting an overseas casino website is punishable by jail time under Japanese law.
Osaka business chiefs talked up the project last year. They said the new IR project will help turn the city into a key entertainment destination for overseas travelers. In May, a Japanese court jailed three company employees who used business accounts to launder over $26.5 million for online casino operators.
