PokerStars Targets Japanese Market, Launches Japan Autumn Festival
PokerStars is by far the biggest online poker room in the world, giving it liquidity in markets many other online poker operators deem to be too small to focus on, such as Japan.
Japan is by no means a small market with a population of 126 million and a GDP of $4.9 trillion. The country was also not one of the 30 countries PokerStars withdrew from at the beginning of October, allowing PokerStars to help grow its potentially lucrative Japanese poker community through regionally targeted promotions.
PokerStars Launches the Japan Autumn Festival
PokerStars has launched the Japan Autumn Festival, which consists of four daily freerolls in October awarding $8,000 in prizes including 2,200 tickets to PokerStars’ guaranteed tournaments.
Five free tickets to the Japan Autumn Festival freerolls are available to any existing PokerStars player in Japan. Tickets to all 120 freerolls are available to existing PokerStars customers that make a deposit of at least $20.
Gaming Liberalization in Japan
Japan for many years was known for cracking down on illegal or unregulated gambling. However, this is expected to change with the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics bringing in many tourists from around the world. Many land-based casinos are anticipating a Japanese gaming bill to be passed, including MGM Resorts International which released plans for Japan in early September during a presentation at the Mizuho Investment Conference in Tokyo.
MGM Resorts president Bill Hornbuckle hopes for gaming to be liberalized in time to have the casino ready in Osaka before the 2020 Summer Olympics, describing the planned casino as a “landmark destination attraction ... uniquely Japanese, not a copy of an integrated resort from Las Vegas or Singapore."
Stay tuned to PokerNews for more news as it happens in the Japanese gaming marketplace.
Image courtesy of DeviantArt
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