Japan’s Kanagawa Prefecture has announced that it would conduct a survey among its residents that would be focused around problem gambling as well as gambling and related addictions.

Yokohama City in Kanagawa prefecture announced last summer that it would participate in the bidding process to host one of three integrated casino resorts the Japanese government is set to authorize as part of a plan to legalize casino gambling and boost tourism in the country.

Under Japan’s Problem Gambling Basic Countermeasure Act of 2018, all prefectures planning to bid for one of the three casino licenses must draft gambling addiction prevention measures.

The government of the Kanagawa Prefecture will use the results from the new survey as well as the results of a similar survey that was conducted in Yokohama not long agoto draft its anti-addiction measures.

The New Survey

The new survey will be conducted from today, February 10, through March 2.It will take place in the form of a questionnaire that will be sent to 6,750 randomly selected prefecture residents between the ages of 18 and 74.

Prefecture officials want to explore all kinds of gambling experiences and behavior, hence the wide age range of citizens to participate in the survey.

The survey will cover different types of gambling activities, including the locally popular pachinko machines, which have already been subjected to heavy criticism for being highly addictive, slot machines, horse and bike racing, online gambling, lotteries, and even securities trading.

Kanagawa prefecture residents will be asked to provide information about their gambling experience, the frequency with which they gamble,if they gamble at all, the amounts spent and whether they have experienced any problems at home due to their gambling habit.

The results from the survey are expected to be announced this coming May. The City of Yokohama will not be included in this survey as a previous one was held in the city not long ago. It took place between December 2019 and January 2020and involved home visits and interviews with randomly selected residents of the city.

Japan’s Snowballing Bribery Scandal

Nationwide, Japan was shaken late last year by a massive bribery scandalinvolving the senior lawmaker who oversaw the drafting of a policy for the introduction of integrated resorts in the country.

Tsukasa Akimoto was arrested on December 25 on suspicion of accepting bribes from Chinese gambling firm 500.comto spearhead its bid to win one of the three casino licenses available.

While Mr. Akimoto has maintained his innocence since his arrest, several other lawmakers have admitted to taking moneyfrom the Chinese sports lottery operator.

The scandal pushed back a final vote on the basic policyfor the selection of the host cities for the three integrated resorts to February. Japanese lawmakers are originally expected to vote on the measure last month, but plans changed because the government wanted to add strict anti-corruption provisions to prevent any future bribery scandals from further delaying the introduction of casino-style gambling in Japan.

Kanagawa prefecture to conduct survey on problem gambling

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