Given their elderly population and deflationary environment that discourages said elderly people from parting with their money, this seems like a great idea.
Having witnessed an excessive amount of asian gambling I have concerns.
This was a vote on casino gambling. I think it will be a good boost to their economy. From an article I read, Japan’s existing forms of gambling, which include lotteries, pachinko and wagering on horse, auto, bicycle and power boat racing bring in more than $30 billion combined.
The opponents to these sorts of laws cite concerns about gambling addiction. What about alcohol addiction, nicotine addiction etc. I don’t understand this argument.
Do you have a lot of asian friends?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/minority-report/201407/asian-gambling-addiction
“According to Dr. Timothy Fong, an associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA and co-director of the UCLA Gambling Studies Program, the rate of gambling addiction ranges from 6 percent to nearly 60 percent, depending on the specific Asian ethnicity (Southeast Asian refugees scoring highest) as opposed to the national rate of 1-2 percent.”
"Because of the role gambling plays as a form of socialization for Asians, casinos in the U.S. have capitalized on this by marketing aggressively to Asians, especially Asian immigrants by offering Asian entertainers, ethnic food, free transportation and even card dealers who speak Asian languages. At the Commerce Casino outside Los Angeles, there are estimates Asians make up 80-90 percent of the clientele. In Connecticut, the Foxwoods Casino has a version of its website written in both Chinese and Vietnamese. "
http://www.asianfortunenews.com/2013/05/a-love-hate-relationship-with-gambling/
“Asians Americans have a high rate of gambling disorders compared to the general population, according to the American Psychiatric Association. Overall, about five percent of the U.S. population suffers from a gambling addiction, but in the Chinese American community, 20 percent are problem gamblers.”
I had a Korean friend in undergrad that had to drop out of school after amassing $60k in online poker debt, his father had a similar gambling problem that almost wrecked his family. Going to Vegas as the lone white dude in a group of 10-15 Asians, I’ve seen people blowing $20k at the tables that probably had about $2k to lose. My first trip out we stayed 5 comp’ed nights at the Venetian. Sometimes we’d be staying at another guys comp’ed house that would be covered by the poker tournament he’d be in that week in Vegas (his Dad also a pro poker player), also Asian.
Is it an Asian wide thing or a Chinese specific thing? Genuinely asking
Its heavily chinese. I have not seen the same levels from koreans or japanese.
What about the Krgyzstanis and Azerbaijanis?
Is it some sort of inherent cultural masochism? On the few occasions in my life I’ve gambled and lost I’ve found it painful beyond believe, far greater than the elation of winning.
But I suppose my culture has never been very comfortable with parting with money.
I thought the Japanese are all addicted to Pachinko.
The Japanese do gamble, but it’s in the form of Pachinko machines, which are everywhere in Tokyo.
I suspect the legalization comes from the Japanese govt. tired of seeing its citizens fly off to Macau and SE Asia. Better to have that money spent back into the Japanese economy. Many US states have legalized gambling under the same premise.
Honestly to your point, I’ve never really seen it among Japanese. Predominantly Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean.
It’s just a lesser degree of loss aversion. I mean, I hung in these groups because honestly I do the same stuff and back in the day loved excessive partying binges. There were a lot of substances, alcohol and general hard partying involved and the highs were pretty damn high. When I went home you’d just hunker down and recover until the next trip. A more pragmatic person would probably have spent that time feeling remorse whereas we mostly just found it funny.
I thought the bookies were an integral part of the British teenage experience.
if the greatest love in the world is Germans’ love for David Hasselhoff, then a close second is a Chinaman’s love for gambling. My FIL does business with some Chinese companies and whenever he has their executives in, the first thing they want to do after getting off the plane is hit the casino. It is understood that any visit will have some significant time set aside for gambling. They gamble with ridiculous sums. Somehow my FIL gets all their rewards points and judging by those point totals I’d guess many of these guys approach playing with $50k+ per visit.
Chinese and Korean culture revolves around money and status, so it makes sense that they make themselves feel important by betting large sums. Japan culture is introverted and traditional. They are not going to make a big show at the casino. What will make money though is all those old people playing slot machines for small losses over a very long period of time. They literally have nothing better to do then sit there, get free drinks, and hope for a small amount of excitement.
Aren’t you just transferring money to large resort corporations held by small groups of shareholders who also hoard cash in investments in this large money supply era? I’ve never seen gambling as a way to stimulate economic growth and I don’t really see this go around as being any different.
nomenclature dude.
And as someone else pointed out the English and Irish do the sports betting to an extreme too (so do the Chinese).
I guess in a way they are just seeking thrills and the fact that there is so much money at stake amplifies it. Masochism also plays a part I’m sure, as Ohai said, being seen and losing that money is a wealth indicator and the ability to recoup losses through the business profitability is another indicator of prosperity. It brings “Being rich enough to lose that money” to a new level.
Essentially the Asian guy you see at the high stakes table is the same as the Caucasian high roller in vegas. They’re probably in the same class of wealth, but the Asian guy is just more noticable, travel in packs, and their population is 3x that of the US.
You have to pay people to run those hotels and it is also a potential tourism attraction. Old people spend $100, but only the margin gets hoarded - the rest is running some kind of activity.
Macau?