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What is Smoking Dragon?
“Casinos, junkets, cryptocurrencies and underground banking are the most critical parts of the money laundering infrastructure that fuels international organised crime,” he said at the time. “The global gambling market will reach $205 billion in 2030.”
The government blocked 548,420 illegal betting and gambling websites between 2006 and 2025, including 84,000 in 2025 alone.
These comments echo a similar sentiment emphasised at the country’s Directorate of Communications panel event on illegal betting and addiction on 10 September. Deputy Minister of Interior Ali Çelik suggested that curbing addiction would lead to a decrease in illegal betting activity.
About Smoking Dragon
Products offered to the public must undergo prior evaluation by a competent body of the Federal Executive Branch, to be defined in regulations. Products classified as high-risk will be subject to specific harm reduction measures. Products with excessive risk may not be offered. This category includes products with outcomes determined by random mechanisms, continuous cycles and variable rewards, such as roulette, slot machines, collision games and simulated virtual sports.
Furthermore, the text maintains obligations for monitoring and institutional cooperation, with the provision of aggregated and anonymised data to the competent authorities. It also provides for actions by the executive branch aimed at monitoring the impacts of betting, training health professionals, updating care protocols and periodically disseminating information on the effects of the activity.
Application providers, digital platforms, hosting services and media intermediaries must remove irregular advertisements and campaigns after notification from the competent authority. The rapporteur’s version requires that the notification clearly and specifically identifies any content deemed irregular and ensures the right to a fair hearing and full defence. Journalistic, academic, parliamentary, artistic and opinion content are expressly protected.
About Smoking Dragon
But for Klebanow, the lesson Japan should take from Macau and Singapore extends beyond the importance of non-gaming attractions. It is also about how regulation should work. Policymakers, he argues, should establish basic legal and commercial guardrails, while giving operators sufficient “latitude” to “propose and develop projects that best serve both the residential and tourism markets”.
He points to Macau’s Cotai Strip and Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa as examples of how regulatory discipline can coexist with considerable freedom for developers to innovate. “At its core, Japan’s policies need to be pragmatic and allow for developments to succeed – not constrain them to the point that they risk failure.”
When asked which operator will be willing to take the risk and ultimately win Japan’s next “licence lottery”, Klebanow contends that it depends on how restrictive – or attainable – the regulations and requirements imposed by the government will be.
