It’s not news that Japan has been mulling casino gambling for the umpteenth time. What is news is that the Diet — or rather, the General Assembly of International Sightseeing Industry Development Diet Member Association — has gotten very serious about the subject. The association has released a 68-article “Casino Act” which would create two experimental casinos, with as many as eight more to follow.
Early favorites for the first pair of casinos are — no surprise here — Wynn Resorts and Las Vegas Sands, the former already enjoying a significant percentage of Japanese ownership through Wynn-san‘s good friend Kazuo Okada. They’ll have plenty of time to hone their presentation. Parliament, the current administration and the Japanese public all get to weigh in on the Casino Act, which won’t be taken up until next year.
It might require repeal of Japan’s current ban on gambling. However, the Diet could get around that a couple of ways. For one, you could bet using tickets or tokens at (let’s say) Venetian Tokyo, then go offsite to an affiliated business to convert your tokens into money, as is currently done by pachinko dens. Or the government could create special havens which are exempt from the ban. No public subsidy has been proposed and Tokyo, Okinawa, Nagasaki, Osaka, Wakayama, Kanagawa, Chiba, Miyagi, Akita, and Hokkaido have been tipped as possible host cities. It’s clearly time to start brushing up on our Japanese geography.
In Harry’s hands. A bill that would finally dispose of the hated UIGEA by legalizing, taxing and regulating Internet gambling in the U.S. has made it out of committee in the House of Representatives. However, that may be all for naught if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) doesn’t put it in the upper house’s docket. Reid has booted this ball a couple of times in the past. At least the bill’s prime mover, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), has insulated it from state-level opposition by providing an opt-out provision for places like Kentucky where the governor is on the warpath against ‘Net betting.
Depending on which casino mogul has his ear, he could get behind the House effort or simply hang the rest of Nevada‘s congressional delegation out to dry. The most leftward of the industry’s CEOs, Harrah’s Entertainment‘s Gary Loveman, has the largest stake here, having thrown in the World Series of Poker‘s lot with online gambling providers. But if Reid’s most vocal casino-industry backer, MGM Resorts International CEO Jim Murren, were to look unfavorably upon the Frank bill, well … all bets are off, as they say.
If you’re an online punter, there are several reasons for concern here. One is that time is of the essence and Reid moves slowly, at best. Besides, he’s so fixated upon not advancing any bill that does have 60 votes in its favor that a few baleful glances from Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) might send Hapless Harry scurrying. And, should GOP lawmakers pick up significant additional House and Senate seats in this fall’s midterms, we could be stuck with UIGEA for many years to come. Somebody needs to light a fire under Reid, stat.
Speaking of MGM, it has filed what is — at first glance, anyway — a ridiculous lawsuit against an Italian company that manufactures “Bellagio Lavender” mattresses. A decade back, the company was in high dudgeon (and rightly so) when the Treasure Island tribal casino in Minnesota sued what is now called “TI,” alleging trademark infringement. Never mind that Treasure Island was a book by Robert Louis Stevenson long before it was anybody’s casino. God help the person who is so careless as to use “Luxor” or “New York” or maybe even “Excalibur” in the name of their product; MGM’s gonna take you out to the shed for an old-fashioned ass-whuppin’.
– Seems to me that Japan’s huge pachinko parlor industry could be a powerful opponent to casino gambling, if it wasn’t bought off somehow. After all:
“… it employs a third of a million people, three times more than the steel industry; it commands 40 percent of Japan’s leisure industry, including restaurants and bars; and with almost 20 million regular enthusiasts coughing up more ¥30 trillion a year (a higher turnover than the car industry), it’s very big business indeed.”
http://www.japan-zone.com/modern/pachinko.shtml
– The bill will go nowhere in the Senate. The GOTea “leadership” has already demonstrated their legislating strategy: oppose, with all tools available, ANYTHING proposed by the majority party; and they are already screaming to “the base” that HarryandPelosiandObama are planning to run roughshod over the Constitution by passing a package of Leftist laws during the lame duck Congress. “Immoral” Internet gambling legalization would by high on their hit list.
The buck stops with Reid, IMO. He has been wishy-washy on repealing UIGEA from the get-go and, short of attaching it as a rider to an appropriations bill, I don’t see how he gets it through the Senate in the time remaining. If UIGEA repeal is posed as a stand-alone bill, it’s going to die in Filibuster Hell, no doubt about it. Sen. Kyl will see to that. ‘Net-betting is his “bete noire” and he’s certain to fight to the last bullet on this one (for which you have to admire him whether you share his views or not).
I repeat:
“- The bill will go nowhere in the Senate. The GOTea “leadership” has already demonstrated their legislating strategy: oppose, with all tools available, ANYTHING proposed by the majority party…”
You’re right about a stand-alone bill being dead on arrival, but they would filibuster an appropriations bill, too, if it had a “legalize immoral gambling” rider, just to play to the base.
As for Reid, he calculated that it had no chance, given GOTea and blue-dog Democrat opposition to so-called immoral issues, it could not pass – and would get in the way of more important legislation. I reluctantly agree.