GGRAsia – Japan Diet approves govt nominees for casino commission

Japan’s parliament, the Diet (pictured), approved on Tuesday the names of three people – one a reappointment – proposed by the national government to join the Japan Casino Regulatory Commission.

The terms of the new commission members will start on January 7, 2025, according to information reviewed by GGRAsia’s Japan correspondent.

Takafumi Sato, who has served as the superintendent prosecutor of the Takamatsu High Public Prosecutors Office, will become the commission’s new chair from January next year.

The official will take over from Michio Kitamura, a former superintendent prosecutor at the Fukuoka High Public Prosecutors Office.

The move is part of a rotation of commission members, who usually serve a term of five years each.  The commission was established in January 2020.

Japan’s first and so far only casino resort, MGM Osaka, is due to open in late 2030.

The other newcomer to the casino commission is Junichi Kakimizu, a former head of the National Tax College under the National Tax Agency.

Michiko Watari, a psychiatrist, has been reappointed to the casino commission, having taken office at the time of the body’s inception in 2020.

Aside from the incumbent chair, another commission member due to step down in January next year is Hiroyuki Ujikane, a former head of the Nagoya Regional Taxation Bureau, who also started as casino commission member on January 7, 2020.

Two casino commission members are partway through their terms. They are Hirofumi Kitamura, a former director of the Traffic Bureau at the National Police Agency, who took office at the commission on January 7, 2023; and Keiko Ishikawa, a professor of economics at Nihon University, who also took office on the same date.

Nagasaki prefecture – last year passed over by the Japanese authorities as a host for a casino resort – confirmed in late November that it had received earlier that month a “questionnaire” from the Japan Tourism Agency regarding the country’s policy of having integrated resorts (IRs) with a casino.

The prefectural authorities said however that no announcement had been made regarding the timing for any new application round whereby Japanese local governments could seek the right to host an IR.