Lawrence Ho, CEO of Melco Resorts Group, says he’s willing to spend at least $10 billion to build a casino resort in Yokohama. According to him, having a casino in Japan is an ambition he’s had for many years.
Several other major international casino groups are currently engaged in a merciless war, each promising to invest huge sums to gain a foothold in the Japanese market.
Melco Resorts, conquering Japan
The Melco Resorts group intends to deploy heavy artillery to conquer the Japanese casino market. The company, headed by Lawrence Ho, intends to use state-of-the-art technology to build its first resort in the country if it manages to obtain one of the three licenses to be awarded by the Japanese government.
To clarify his point, Ho revealed in an interview that his staff is already working on implementing a facial recognition system that will effectively control and restrict access to the casino. As for the budget, the son of Hong Kong billionaire Stanley Ho had already, during a previous interview, put forward the sum of 10 billion dollars .
An amount he now considers a minimum investment. Melco Resorts would therefore be willing to invest more if necessary, in order to make its Japanese casino complex a truly unique place in the world.
The Battle for the Japanese Market
While Melco Resorts is willing to put up a minimum of $10 billion, its potential competitors seem just as determined. This is the case, for example, with the Las Vegas Sands group, which has announced a budget of $10 to $12 billion for the construction of its casino in Japan if its bid is ultimately accepted. And according to the words of its CFO, Patrick Dumont, the American firm could go beyond this ceiling, if necessary.
It must be said that the battle to secure a place in the emerging Japanese casino market is one of the major concerns of most of the major casino groups on the planet today.
This is understandable when you consider that only three licenses will be granted initially. According to Wall Street analysts’ forecasts, this market could be worth at least $15 billion by 2025. This is a strong incentive for the industry’s magnates, who are always on the lookout for promising new markets. But for now, it’s the MGM Resorts group that appears to be in the best position to secure the first license.
On the ground, a real little pitched battle is also taking place between Japanese cities in the perspective of the selection of the first three that will have the privilege of hosting the first Japanese casino establishments. We recently learned of the withdrawal of the municipality of Hokkaido, despite being one of the favorites in this race for casinos.
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