The future of Japan, Macau and Korea looks to be very different. That’s a clear lesson from the Day 2 ASEAN Gaming Summit 2019 panel talk from four expert analysts of the Asia gambling industry, although they didn’t always agree on the specific details.

The panel was moderated by Alidad Tash, managing director of 2NT8. Invited to debate were Vitaly Umansky from Bernstein, Angel Sueiro from Morgan Stanley and Anil Sadwani from Citigroup. The discussion was focused on the upcoming futures for the three key regions in the Asian gambling business.

Japan’s integrated resort future

Discussion began with Japan, which has the exciting prospect of its three new Integrated Resort (IR) licenses. Due to strict restrictions against some kind of junket operation, the experts all agreed that Japan will not be able to rely on Chinese VIPs like Macau has. Instead, it will need to focus its resorts on building mass market tourism.