The passing of the Promotional Integrated Resort (IR) bill in Japan has been
pushed back once again, with the implication being a further delay in the
opening of casinos in Japan. As Japanese casinos are likely to partly target
the same customer base as Korean casinos (northern Chinese), any delay of
the IR bill is positive for the longer-term development of the gaming sector in
Korea as regional competition eases. In the Korean gaming space, GKL has
the highest target price upside as we project a valuation re-rating for the
company on the back of higher visibility of its new integrated resort casino.
What Happened
We met with a member of the House of Representatives of the Japanese
National Diet in order to get clarity on the progress of the Promotional IR
(integrated resort) bill in Japan.
What We Think
The Promotional IR bill, which will begin the casino legalisation process in
Japan, has been submitted to the Diet but the current 189th ordinary session of
the Diet ended on 24 June with no discussion on the IR bill. The Diet session
will be extended for three months and hence the IR bill may be possibly
discussed during that timeframe. However, a detailed schedule of the IR bill
discussion has not been established yet as security related bills need to be
discussed first. As the IR bill is submitted by cabinet committees, there are
currently two other non-gaming related bills that need to be discussed prior to
the IR bill. Once the Promotional IR bill passes, the Diet has one year to
establish the IR Implementation bill, which will detail the framework of the
casino industry, such as regulations, tax and bidding processes. After these two
bills are passed, a bidding process for locations and operators will begin, which
will be followed by the construction process.
There have been multiple delays to the passing of the Promotional IR bill. We
were told that the Promotional IR bill has a 70% chance of passing by the end
of the current Diet session on 27 September. However, given the delays in the
past, we will not be surprised if the passing of the Promotional IR bill gets
further delayed until next year’s Diet session. Given the expected lengthy
discussion period for the follow-on Implementation IR bill, tender and
construction processes, our early best-case scenario is for the Japanese casinos
to begin operations well after the 2020 Japan Olympics, possibly 2022. While
there are concerns for Korean casinos in light of the new gaming capacity
addition in Japan as the key marketing areas for Chinese gamers are likely to
overlap, we are not worried as we believe that the Japanese casinos will initially
focus on penetrating the domestic pachinko market, which has a market size of
JPY19tr (as of 2012), 6x larger than Korea’s gaming market revenue in 2014. In
addition, even if Japan specifically targets the Mainland Chinese, the likely
prohibition of the use of junkets in the Japan casino industry will curtail some
visitation from China.
What You Should Do
We recommend investors to stay invested in GKL as we project a valuation
re-rating for the company on the back of higher visibility for its new integrated
resort casino.