Melco Crown’s James Packer is in talks with several Japanese and Australian corporations to join forces to build a US$5bn casino complex in Japan for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Todd Nisbet, the Crown executive leading the Japan casino bid, said the company was eyeing a project even more elaborate than Melco Crown’s flagship City of Dreams mega-resort in Macau.
In an interview with The Australian, Nisbet also revealed Crown was in active talks with the Vietnamese and South Korean governments about their plans for new casino resort developments and said he expected negotiations over Crown’s casino project in Sri Lanka would be completed before the end of the year.
But Japan’s potential as a $40bn-a-year gaming market means it remains Melco Crown’s highest priority internationally. “Japan is the biggest single opportunity that we are looking at in terms of an international expansion and growth story, just because of the sophistication of the market, the appeal of the overall area,” Nisbet said.
Crown boss James Packer will visit Tokyo this week as part of a business delegation accompanying Prime Minister Tony Abbott on his North Asia visit and will speak about the company’s plans for Tokyo at a business function.
