Things have certainly taken a turn for the worse regarding the introduction of legalized casino gambling in Japan, as a state minister has just been arrested on suspicion that he was paid a large amount of cash to give one of the potential bidders who wanted to open a casino resort there preferential treatment with their bid.
Many major U.S. land based casino operators have been showing an interest in bidding for a license to operate a casino resort in Japan, with the country having recently loosened the gambling laws, however one of them, that being Caesars Entertainment Corp must have has a suspicion themselves it was a pointless exercise and something was not right with the bidding and selection process, as they unexpected pulled out of the race to open a casino is Japan recently.
Early reports are that the state minister that has been arrested is Tsukasa Akimoto who was the minister in charge of the plan to accept bids and oversee both the selection process and then the opening of a casino resort in Japan.
His arrest follows the revelation by an executive of the Chinese gambling website, 500.com, that he was told he would need to give Akimoto money to cover bribes that he would have to pay to help with their application and allow it to have preference treatment.
The amount of cash it has been alleged he received was sone ¥3.7 million, which was made up of ¥3 million in cash along with ¥700,000 paid for travelling expense for Akimoto and his family.
Police have arrested three other people investigating the case, two of whom worked as advisors for 500.com.
