Authors: Naoko Takiguchi, Otani University and Yuko Kawanishi, JF Oberlin University

By the end of the 2020s, large-scale casinos will arrive in Japan where gambling is strictly prohibited by law and not favoured in opinion polls. There is concern that casinos will increase gambling addiction and criminal activity — but casino supporters loudly advocate their potential power to revitalise Japan’s declining economy.

Amid the heated controversy regarding the establishment of the casino business, a political scandal erupted. Tsukasa Akimoto — a lawmaker of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) — was arrested for accepting a bribe from a Chinese company seeking to gain entry to the integrated resort market in Japan, although he denies the allegation. Akimoto was a deputy minister in the Cabinet Office from August 2017 to September 2019 and eager to promote the establishment of casinos.

The bribery scandal is fuelling the anger of those opposed to the government’s casino plan. The most recent opinion poll by the Kyodo News agency on 11 and 12 January shows that more than 70 per cent of respondents want the government to re-examine this casino promotion agenda. Opposition parties are urging the casino plan to be completed dropped.

But as the LDP and its coalition partner Komeito dominate both the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is confident about getting the casino policies passed — while repeating he would do so ‘conscientiously’.

Is such an important issue going to be passed without a thorough analysis?

The Japanese government has long avoided fundamental debate regarding the legitimacy of gambling. Japan has never had gambling policies. Even today, comprehensive gambling policies do not exist. Articles 185 and 186 in the Japanese Penal Code state ‘a person who gambles shall be punished by a fine of not more than ‎500,000 yen’ (US$4550), and ‘a person who habitually gambles shall be punished by imprisonment with work’.

At the same time, the Japanese government does allow certain forms of gambling. Japan has state-operated forms of gambling such as horse, motorboat and motorcycle racing, lottery and football betting, and privately operated electronic gaming machines (EGM) called pachinko and pachislot.

Pachinko and pachislot machines are ubiquitous and easily accessible to anyone. In fact, 60 per cent of the world’s gaming machines are operated in Japan. But pachinko and pachislot fall under the legal status of ‘games’ that are regulated as entertainment for people aged 18 years old or above.

In 2019 the Japanese government announced ‘the action plan for the addictions of gambling and so forth’. This was to show that the government was trying to minimise gambling problems and assure the public that opening casinos would not increase gambling addiction. The inclusion ‘and so forth’ allows the plan to address the problem caused by EGMs, since EGMs are not categorised as gambling.

The lifetime prevalence rate of gambling disorders in Japan is 3.6 per cent, with more than 80 per cent of those who suffer from the disorder stating they mostly play pachinko or pachislot. Placing the most prevalent form of problem gambling in the ‘games’ legal status underestimates the severity of the problems pachinko and pachislot generate. These include debt, divorce, homelessness, abuse of children and aging parents, crime, depression, domestic violence and suicide attempts.

Opening casinos still does not mean the legalisation of gambling in Japan. The bill passed in December 2016 — titled The Act on Promotion of Development of Specified Integrated Resort Districts — allows the opening of casinos in specified areas only. Leaving out the words ‘casinos’ or ‘gambling’ demonstrates the government’s eagerness to avoid the fundamental question about the legality of gambling. It appears the Abe government hopes that Japanese society will eventually accept the bill as a fait accompli.

The government seems unwilling to seriously address the problems that gambling imposes on Japanese society. What the government is ultimately interested in is the tax levied from the industry. The industry must make profits in order to satisfy the taxation needs of the government. But the government will then need to spend more money to address various issues caused by gambling, including treatment, prevention, crimes, child abuse and bankruptcy.

A study in Victoria, Australia shows that the social costs associated with gambling in Victoria (AU$7 billion or US$4.7 billion) almost matches the expenditure (AU$5.8 billion or US$3.9 billion) and tax (AU$1.6 billion or US$1.1 billion) generated by gambling. While the government hopes to obtain tax revenue from the gambling industry, it fails to recognise the social cost of gambling, which is larger than the tax revenue. This is the irony the Japanese government may have to face in the future.

Uncontrollable gambling comes attached with an intense stigma. Gamblers and their family members make desperate efforts to hide their gambling-related problems and attempt to solve them alone. Other people remain unaware of the devastating effects gambling can have on their lives. Remarks such as ‘the gamblers (and their family members) should take care of the gambling problems by themselves’ and ‘it is only foreign visitors who will pay the price’ are commonplace. Is this what the Japanese government wants its people to believe?

Naoko Takiguchi is Professor at the Department of Sociology, Otani University, Kyoto.

Yuko Kawanishi is Adjunct Lecturer at the Global Communication Department, JF Oberlin University, Tokyo.