Legislation
Japan – New laws to make Japan’s IRs ‘unprecedentedly large scale’
By Phil - 27 March 2019
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s cabinet approved new regulations for the country’s future IR casino industry yesterday with specifics including the necessary size of hotels, conference facilities and exhibition centres.
Prime Minister Abe said he wanted resorts of ‘unprecedentedly large scale and high quality.’
At least 100,000 square meters must be taken up by the hotel aspect of the IR with 2,000 standard rooms of 40 square meters and 500 suites of 70 square meters. IRs will need to feature a 120,000-square-meter exhibition hall, or a conference room capable of accommodating 6,000 people. A design combining both would also be allowed with minimum size reduced to a 60,000 square-meter convention hall and a conference room for 3,000 people. Gaming floors will only be allowed to take up three per cent of a property’s footprint.
New laws were also passed in terms of advertising. Casino will only be able to show advertisements inside their integrated resorts or at the immigration areas of Japan’s airports and seaports.
In terms of preventing money laundering, chip exchanges of more than JPY1m (just over $9,000) will need to be reported much lower in macau where the threshold is set at $62,000.
