Brief news about Hus Ten Bosch Casino in Sasebo in 2018

The University of Macau lecture on IR operational management in Sasebo

● Nagasaki newspaper – Sunday, July 22


The University of Macau that researches IR facilities including casino operational management held a lecture session on the 21st of July to review human resources cultivation for IR at Nagasaki International University in Sasebo, Nagasaki. It was co-sponsored by Kyushu economic organizations ‘Kyushu economic forum’ (Susumu Ishihara, the chairman) and this was for the first time ever in Japan.


The lecture session was held all the way through to the 22nd and there were about 60 participants from inside and outside Japan. The coaches were the professors of the university and there were seven seminars including an introduction on IR management, the Macau situation with the IR industry and financial accounting strategies.



They grouped together after the seminar and debated about developing plans in Sasebo as they are aiming to attract people there. On the 23rd, they are going to visit Huis Ten Bosch to inspect it as it is a candidate location for IR attractions.

Two organizations in Nagasaki proposed to cancel the IR attraction saying ‘The gambling industry attractions of administrative are not acceptable.’

● Nagasaki newspaper – Saturday, June 16


On the 14th of July, ‘The Prefectural demographic association’ and ‘The citizen’s group to think about casino attraction problems’ visited Nagasaki prefectural office and submitted a proposal to stop the attraction in Nagasaki prefecture that Nagasaki prefecture and Sasebo city aim to move forward to create an IR including a casino within Huis Ten Bosch. The letter was to the prefecture governor Hodo Nakamura.


What they said was that casinos are gambling regulated as a crime in criminal law, so the administrative office can’t even consider attracting the gambling industry and that is not acceptable.



Other participants pointed out how the estimation of the economic effect is not correct and that other industries like nature and culture related industries should be considered over and above the casino. The staff in charge answered; We will take measures to deal with negative influences for those areas concerned. We would like to continue to exchange opinions in the future.

City council MICE facility budget deliberation – Japanet side is going to summon – Arena plan and overlapped concerns

● Nagasaki newspaper – Wednesday, June


In terms of Nagasaki city planning to construct a MICE (convention) facility on the west side of JR Nagasaki station and Japanet Holdings (Sasebo city) considering to construct an arena in Saiwaimachi, the city council is adjusting plans to summon Japanet as a witness during the regular meeting held on the 7th.


Japanet is planning to construct a soccer stadium in Saiwaimachi. According to people related, the arena will be purpose built for events such as sports like professional basketball and music events. They are supposedly repeatedly discussing with the city about the MICE facility with its synergistic effect.



At the same time, multiple members of the assembly are concerned with the influence of attracting people to multiple facilities if the arena is used as exhibitions, because some functions may overlap. Also, they are cautious about equipping a MICE function for the IR with a casino which Sasebo city is trying to attract.

Brief news about Huis Ten Bosch Casino in Sasebo 2017

IR operation company opens an office in Sasebo – First time in Nagasaki –

● Sankei newspaper – Monday, May 21


The overview of the IR plan which the theme park operator of Huis Ten Bosch in Sasebo city, Nagasaki is considering was revealed on the 20th.


The main plan is to construct a casino facility in the sea which is the first time ever in the world. According to sources related to the operation, the sea casino is a special facility with large tempered glass under the sea, so visitors can view fish while enjoying games. The place is planned with Omura Bay along Huis Ten Bosch and the cost of construction is estimated to be about several tens of billions of yen.



Other facilities such as an International conference center and shopping mall for IR are to be constructed in the space where Huis Ten Bosch is currently using as a car park. Also, there’s no know-how in terms of IR operations, so they have a policy to consider working together with major overseas companies.


An executive of Huis Ten Bosch said that ‘Casinos are all around Asia such those in Korea, Macau and Singapore, so making something competitive should work to attract customers.’ so that is why they aim to make a sea casino.

IR operation company opened an office in Sasebo for the first time in Nagasaki prefecture

● Nagasaki newspaper – Saturday, December 2


The investment and operation company for IR including casino ‘Clairvest Neem Ventures’ (in Tokyo) opened an office in Miura-cho, Sasebo city, Nagasaki on the 1st of December. According to the prefectural IR promotion office, the IR operator indicated they would enter the IR business and it was the first time that an office was set up there.


The group has been performing IR investment and operations in a total of 24 places in Canada, America and Chile. They have visited here for inspection before.


At the Sasebo office, they will listen to expectations and requests about employment and economic issues in terms of the economic world.


At the same time, they will explain measurements and try to grab an understanding of citizens for those concerned such as gambling addiction and bad influences on youth in order to prepare for entering the business.

Sasebo Chamber of Commerce and Industry proposed ‘Sea Casino’ for Nagasaki IR idea plan

● Nagasaki newspaper – Friday, July 28


Sasebo Chamber of Commerce and Industry published a proposal to Nagasaki IR idea plan on the 27th which is incorporating a sea casino setting idea as Nagasaki prefecture and Sasebo city are aiming to attract the casino IR to Huis Ten Bosch.


The proposal was trying to appeal to ‘rural type IR’ emphasising the point of regional revitalization as well as reflecting on the basic IR idea plan of what the prefecture drew up since the implement bill has been confirmed.


Based on the sea concept such as their Kujuku islands and Omura bay, they proposed a sea casino with the slogan of ‘providing the world’s only resort environment utilizing hydrophilicity’.


They also talked about the water transportation plans to connect Huis Ten Bosch, the city center and the Kujuku islands.

Brief news about Huis Ten Bosch Casino in Sasebo 2016

HTB ‘Robot Casino’ reveiled

● Nagasaki newspaper – Wednesday, February 17


Huis Ten Bosch (HTB) in Sasebo city, Nagasaki revealed a Robot Casino which is a human looking robot that helps dealers with people on the tables on the 16th. They indicated a possibility of utilization of the robots in the casino.


The robot is called NAO (about 60cm in height) and it was developed by a French company. It’s built in with multiple sensors and a microphone, it responds to human voices and can run face authentication. HTB will guide and serve with robots as part of a kind of new style strange hotel.


Three robots are placed near the roulette table and they keep casino games going saying things such as ‘The game is starting.’ and ‘No more bets (the time for placing bets is now over).’. Some parts of their speaking may be operated operated by staff through tablets.

Summary up to 2015

Huis Ten Bosch is another leading candidate with Osaka, Yokohama (Kanagawa), Okinawa as a casino attraction located in a large resort and Holland style theme park in Sasebo city, Nagasaki.


Huis Ten Bosch was opened in March, 1992, putting 200 billion yen into it, however, it is about one hour away from Nagasaki Airport so it is a very inconvenient location, so it’s been in a downturn for years and the business has been failing since February, 2003.


However, it became affiliated with the tourism company H.I.S from April, 2010 and management was passed to Hideo Sawada, that created an upturn and now it has become a profitable resort lining together with the same success profile as the likes of Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studio Japan in Osaka.



Such Huis Ten Bosch is supposedly set the goal of becoming a Casino with an IR facility.


A casino IR facility is a multiple tourism facility centered around a casino, restaurants, a shopping mall, a theater, a movie theater, attractions, conference rooms and a business convention center. Resort World Sentosa in Singapore is a good example of succeeding in recent years.


Sasebo city where Huis Ten Bosch is in started getting serious about casino IR attractions from the time that the casino attraction promotion committee with mainly three prefectures such as Nagasaki, Fukuoka and Saga ‘West Kyushu IR study group’ was established in 2007.



Firstly, as the initial step of the casino idea plan, Huis Ten Bosch commissioned the cruise Ocean Rose (remodeled old cruise from Panama) owned by a Panama subsidiary of the child company HTB Cruise on February 29, 2012 and started operating it as a passenger ship establishing it with a casino on July 25.


The business route connects between Nagasaki city and Shanghai city and inside it is structured with massive floors with nice stories.


The fifth floor was installed with a casino on the cruise and is about 300m2 in area and is operated by an operator in a legal overseas casino country and popular casino games are set up such as roulette, baccarat, blackjack and slot machines.



Secondly, there was a movement for opening a casino for wealthy people at the Hotel Europe in Huis Ten Bosch as an idea by the West Kyushu IR study group.


This idea is to build a 10 story casino resort hotel (1,352 guest rooms) on a property which is currently a carpark for staff spending a total construction amount of 42.4 billion yen and the casino floor is 13,000m2 from the basement to the second floor.


It would target Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese and other foreign tourists and it is expected to receive five million visitors yearly and have a economic impact of 254.4 billion yen as well as about an 11,000 employee increase for the whole of west Kyushu.



From the flow of the casino attraction like above, Nagasaki prefecture and Sasebo city would withdraw about 16,000,000 yen from tax established by an administrative organization for the casino attraction in 2013.


Also, in October, 2012, the prefecture assembly got a memorandum asking for development of laws for casino legalization and it was approved with a majority.


Further to that, in November, 2015, Huis Ten Bosch bought the, inhibited island Nagashima and so a casino IR attraction by Nagasaki prefecture and Sasebo city seems likely to be constructed.