In Japan, the governments for a trio of local areas have reportedly revealed that they will be lodging formal bids in hopes of securing one of the three casino licenses being made available following last year’s ratification of the Integrated Resort Implementation Bill.

Osaka to lodge joint bid:

According to a Monday report from The Japan Times newspaper citing a survey conducted by Kyodo News, Osaka Prefecture is planning to partner with the giant city of Osaka in order to lodge a joint proposal for one of the licenses, which they hope will lead to the opening of a large resort casino complete with other amenities such as hotels, shops and conference facilities by the end of 2025.

Prefecture pair:

The newspaper reported that the nation’s third most populated state is due to be officially joined in this race by the neighboring Wakayama Prefecture as well as by western Kyushu’s Nagasaki Prefecture. All three have already selected candidate sites and are eager to obtain one of the licenses in hopes of creating jobs while bringing a multitude of other economic benefits to their areas.

Many interested locales:

The Japan Times reported that the survey from Kyodo News, which was conducted over November and December, covered every one of the nation’s 47 prefectures in addition to some 20 large cities that are eligible to take part in the race for one of the three integrated casino resort licenses. The study also found that the governments for the cities of Yokohama, Tokyo, Nagoya and Chiba City were officially still weighing up the possibility of entering the fray as were Tokyo Prefecture, Ibaraki Prefecture and Hokkaido Prefecture.

Appeal not entire:

The survey discovered that the governments for 17 other eligible cities and prefectures were officially ‘undecided’ on whether to enter the licensing race while a further 40 detailed that they would not be applying due to worries over public safety. In this latter category, Miyagi Prefecture, purportedly cited problem gambling concerns for its stance while the largely rural Shimane Prefecture declared that it intends to promote future tourism by ‘taking advantage of nature and history.’