Last week, reports surfaced that there are pending gambling changes in Japan in anticipation of launching casinos in the country. One of the last subjects to be decided by the ruling parties was how much casinos would be taxed, but that debate has now come to a close. The two parties last Friday reached an agreement on taxes, as well as the size of gaming space in relation to resort space.

The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Komeito Party agreed that casinos would be taxed a flat rate of 30%, according to reports. They also decided that the gaming space of integrated resorts (IR) would be limited to 3% of the overall IR space. This latter decision was designed to appease pro-IR legislators.

Komeito had previously wanted an incremental tax rate. It proposed a 30% rate that would subsequently increase to 50% based on a certain level of income. The LDP pushed for, and won, the flat 30% tax rate.

The gaming floor size limitation is apparently not very well defined. There has been no clarification on what overall IR space is in order to calculate the 3% destined for gaming. A previously discussed limit of 161,458 square feet (15,000 square meters) has been completely rejected.