Lawrence Ho, the billionaire owner of Melco Resorts & Entertainment Ltd., said he favors building a casino in Osaka rather than Tokyo because there are more opportunities to develop the smaller Japanese city as an entertainment destination.
Ho is among the industry heavyweights seeking entry to Japan after lawmakers voted in December to open the country to casino gambling. The government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, which made casino liberalization a priority, hasn’t decided where those casinos will be built nor which companies will operate them.
The prize could be the world’s most lucrative casino market, which CLSA Ltd. estimates could generate $25 billion annually. While Melco is considering the viability of Tokyo and nearby Yokohama, the company’s top choice is Osaka and the surrounding Kansai region, home to attractions such as Universal Studios Japan and the city of Kyoto, famed for its Buddhist temples.
“When you go to the Kansai region, it’s more fun, really, and we’re a company that focuses on fun and entertainment,” said the 40-year-old Ho, who also serves as chief executive officer, in an interview at Melco’s City of Dreams resort in Macau.
Melco is competing for Japanese licenses with rivals that include Las Vegas Sands Corp. and MGM Resorts International, both of which are focusing on Tokyo and Yokohama in addition to Osaka. To be selected, operators and municipalities will have to team up and submit a proposal to the government, according to guidelines published this month.
“MGM’s business model is to build large-scale destination resorts with lots of stuff that cost a lot of money,” Ed Bowers, executive vice president of global development for MGM Resorts, said this month. “So it needs to be in a high-density population area.”
The Tokyo metropolitan area, home to about a third of Japan’s people, is the country’s political and financial center and the base of headquarters for the country’s biggest companies, including Sony Corp., SoftBank Group Corp. and Hitachi Ltd. The city will also host the 2020 Summer Olympics.
That popularity is what makes Tokyo less than optimal for hosting the type of integrated casino resort popular in Las Vegas and Macau, Ho said. Those facilities typically include hotels, entertainment options, shopping and convention centers.
“I’m not so sure Tokyo needs an integrated resort,” said Ho, whose net worth is about $2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. “Tokyo by itself is amazing. It’s like when people ask me: ‘Do you think New York and London need an integrated resort?’ No, they don’t.”