Hokkaido business groups to urge Japanese prefecture to meet 2027 IR application window

Eight business organisations in Japan’s Hokkaido prefecture plan to submit a formal request next Tuesday (September 8) for the local governor to speed Hokkaido’s effort for an integrated resort (IR) with casino, to make the next application window in 2027, reported on Thursday the Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper. The window for a second round of applications is due to run from May 6, 2027 to November 5, 2027.The organisations planning the request to governor Naomichi Suzuki include the Hokkaido Economic Federation. The news report said this would mark the first IR-related formal submission by the business community to the prefectural government since November 2019. The previous one was just before Mr Suzuki announced Hokkaido would not put itself forward for the first national application round. September 8 coincides with the opening of the third regular session of the Hokkaido prefectural assembly, according to GGRAsia’s Japan correspondent. Per the news outlet, the business community was concerned the governor and the prefecture might prove too slow in pushing forward an IR initiative. The caution might be in the context of factors including a gubernatorial election scheduled for next spring, reported the newspaper. Last month, the prefecture said three existing overseas casino operators and 12 domestic companies had replied to questionnaires it organised, canvassing investor interest in Hokkaido as a casino-resort location. Tomakomai – an industrial port city on Hokkaido’s south central coast – has for some time been a front-runner as the prefecture’s candidate location for an IR. The only Japanese IR approved so far is the under-construction JPY1.51-trillion (US$9.58-billion currently) MGM Osaka, being developed by MGM Resorts International with local partners, and due to open at the end of 2030. In other news on the IR topic this week, Omura city, in Nagasaki prefecture, held on Wednesday the first meeting of “The Omura Bay Green IR Feasibility Study Promotion Council” looking at the chance of getting such a facility there. The Omura study group will also explore the possibility of new entertainment options other than casinos, per a review of materials by GGRAsia’s Japan correspondent. Omura’s mayor, Hirofumi Sonoda, who sits on the study group, said: “We will discuss the feasibility of IRs in local areas [rather than metropolitan areas] and also new entertainment forms other than casinos.” The study group aims to forge a basic concept for an IR in the region and to outline suggestions to the central government to rationalise certain rules under the Integrated Resort Act – relating to scale of facilities – to make it easier to have IRs in local areas in Japan. Omura by itself doesn’t qualify to apply directly to the national authorities for an IR, as that right is reserved either for prefectures or what are known as ‘ordinance-level’ authorities. Omura city is part of Nagasaki prefecture, which itself had an unsuccessful bid for an IR in the first round of applications that concluded in December 2023.