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“Some of them [investors] that were looking at Japan were looking at a big IR licence or nothing. With Tokyo and Yokohama being out of the mix, maybe some weren’t as interested anymore and decided to sit back, and wait and see how regulation and licensing shake out.”
One concern for operators is “the short duration of licences and renewal of licences”, notes Leckert. For operators, the casino business licence is renewable every three years, while the IR development-plan authorisation runs for 10 years, in contrast to the 18-year IR licence term in the Philippines, for instance.
Limiting the duration of licence validity “puts the entire capital investment at risk”, says Klebanow. Further regulations, including limiting residents to 10 visits per month and requiring them to present a ‘My Number Card’ when gambling, further erodes project viability. “Ultimately, casino developers individually concluded that developing an IR was too risky, and they took their billions of dollars in potential capital investment and walked away,” observes Klebanow.
About Thats Rich
SmartSoft has joined the African iGaming Alliance (AiA) as a Gold Supplier Member in a strategic partnership focused on its continued development of African gambling.
In an announcement on Tuesday, the parties said the agreement was “focused on supporting the continued development of sustainable, responsible and commercially viable regulated gambling markets across Africa”.
SmartSoft maintains an established and growing presence in Africa, having also co-hosted the iGB L!VE Africa Summit in July.
About Thats Rich
“It would be crazy to say that these cases are positive for the industry,” he says. “They will no doubt continue, but as an industry we need to try to reduce their frequency.”
Enforcement publicity may lack context, and some settlements may involve errors rather than systemic recklessness. But the sector cannot control how its opponents use these cases. It can only reduce the supply.
At a moment when the industry needs to persuade politicians that regulated gambling is capable of managing risk responsibly, repeated failures in long-established areas such as AML and safer gambling amount to political self-harm.
