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This risk is particularly apparent when many offshore operators are established brands rather than unknown entities.
“It’s not a dark alley,” he continues. “It’s a large operator that’s regulated in other places, so it’s not the risk for the player that sometimes is implied.”
With the central challenge of tax to compete with, operators face a test of whether they can maintain growth while remaining competitive in an increasingly fierce market.
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Japan has drawn on Singapore’s IR development model, which embodies a balancing act between ambitious economic visions and restrictive conditions. But Andrew Klebanow, principal of Klebanow Consulting, believes Japan’s IR regulations swerved “too far into crafting regulations and policies”. Klebanow specialises in hotel-casino market feasibility studies, strategic planning and facility planning recommendations.
“As the RFP process played out, regulators introduced additional policies and regulations. As each regulation was introduced, developers adjusted their gaming forecasting models downward. Finally, those models reached a tipping point where potential revenues were insufficient to justify a project’s capital costs,” says Klebanow.
Japan’s attempt to reap the economic benefits of casino gaming while keeping gambling socially contained is comparable to Asia’s dominant casino hubs Singapore and Macau.
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Spectrum Gaming Group’s 2022 report, which sits at the heart of the long-running dispute between the major games suppliers, has been unsealed as part of Evolution’s legal case against Black Cube.
Black Cube, an intelligence firm hired by Playtech in 2020 to look into alleged illegal behaviour at its rival Evolution, released a divisive report into Evolution’s actions. Evolution denied and refuted much of its findings.
Evolution then commissioned Spectrum Gaming Group to produce a report on its actions and the validity of the Black Cube report. Produced in 2022, the report has long been subject to confidentiality despite Evolution claiming the report exonerated the company.
