About this app
What is King Blitz?
Although the late LVS chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson hailed the Japanese market as “a holy grail” and the “ultimate of business opportunities”, the company dropped out of the game, scrapping its pledged $10 billion project.
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.
About King Blitz
But what has changed is what shareholders want those companies to prove – and the price they are willing to pay for that proof.
Fantini points to land-based examples like Red Rock Resorts and Monarch Casino as companies that can still attract capital because they offer sensible growth and strong management. That is a telling comparison with the industry’s recent past.
London’s problems are real. Entain’s removal from the FTSE 100 and Flutter’s move away from its London primary listing are evidence of that. But Flutter’s experience in New York shows that changing the listing does not remove the pressure.
How to play King Blitz
“Not making the product available across all game suppliers and all product verticals would be a massive missed opportunity,” Wilson explains. “Wherever you can have a player placing a bet, give them the opportunity to win on the jackpot engine because it is such a sticky product.”
A branded jackpot also gives operators a visible identity across content they did not create, turning third-party games into something closer to their own ecosystem.
“There’s this huge, proven revenue opportunity, but it’s also about continuity of the brand that exists across the whole platform and the whole offering,” Wilson adds.
