With the boom in casino business around Asia being at an all-time high, it looks as though Japan will be joining the bandwagon soon. The Japanese parliament is beginning the process of legalizing casinos in their country. It will be a few months before a verdict is reached, but this process is a great sign for gambling enthusiasts in the country.

A bill was written up and passed to the lower house of their parliament in December of last year. This bill will now be debated by parliament officials, although the process is not expected to be concluded before their annual holidays around the 22nd of June. The group debating this issue is being led by Hiroyuki Hosoda, a member of the country’s Liberal Democratic Party.

Japan has been looking for ways to improve their tourism industry, especially with the country set to stage the 2020 Olympics. Staging those games will require a lot of upgrades to cities around the country. That comes at a price. While an Olympic buzz can help tourism for a year or two, legalizing casinos will provide a permanent increase. People from all over the world come to VIP casinos, with a majority of tourists coming from China. At the moment, most of these tourists are going to south-east Asia or Australia. Japan is attempting to get a foothold in that market.

Infrastructure:

Many on the Japanese parliament believe the country already has the infrastructure in place to ensure that the transition to legal casinos is smooth. There are enough resources to set up anti-crime and money laundering units to monitor the legal casinos, in addition to cleaning up any of the areas where a casino is to be built.

Hosoda, who is leading the call to legalize casinos, believes that the process can be done correctly. “We know that adding legal casinos will boost tourism, along with adding a lot of tax revenue for the government. It is important the process is done correctly, so that we can add casinos while preventing additional crime and gambling addictions among our society.”

For more information on this story, click here.