Saipan may be pressured to pass its own casino gaming law if voters approve an initiative that would legalize controlled casino gambling on Guam this November, according to a Tinian Dynasty Hotel and Casino executive.<\/p>\n
Tinian Dynasty general manager Tom Liu said that at this time, he does not see a casino industry on Guam having a major impact on the operations of the CNMI\u2019s only casino gaming facility. <\/p>\n
The Tinian Dynasty primarily targets the Chinese tourism market, who Liu noted could not visit and gamble on Guam without a U.S. visa. Tinian\u2019s advantage over Guam lies on the CNMI\u2019s more relaxed immigration policy, as well as its direct charter flights from China, he said.<\/p>\n
Liu, however, expects to get a clearer picture of the impact of a Guam casino industry once Saipan decides to legalize casino gambling.<\/p>\n
\u201cRealistically, if Guam passes a casino gaming law, Saipan has no choice but to pass its own. A casino industry on Guam will cause definite disadvantage to Saipan, because both islands are competing for the Japanese and Korean markets,\u201d Liu noted.<\/p>\n
Japanese and Korean citizens or nationals are eligible for Guam\u2019s visa waivers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Saipan starts to open casinos, Tinian can close down. Tinian can\u2019t compete with Saipan in terms of infrastructure and availability of hotel rooms, among other things,\u201d Liu said.<\/p>\n
Former Gov. Froilan Tenorio, a big proponent of casino gaming on Saipan, said the CNMI Legislature should move toward establishing a casino industry on Saipan before Guam does it.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if casino gaming is approved on Guam, we can still get investors to put up casinos on Saipan. But it will be more difficult. Guam is bigger and it has more facilities and infrastructure,\u201d Tenorio said in a separate interview.<\/p>\n
But not all is lost yet, Tenorio added.<\/p>\n
He echoed Liu\u2019s statement that CNMI\u2019s autonomy from the United States in terms of immigration policy is one advantage that the Commonwealth has over Guam. \u201cWe can bring everybody from China, the Philippines\u2026 without a U.S. visa. Many can\u2019t go to Guam,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cSome of the Japanese investors I\u2019ve talked to said they didn\u2019t mind investing on Saipan, even if there\u2019s a casino industry on Guam. But there\u2019s no way they would invest on Tinian. In other words, they can\u2019t see [themselves] competing with Guam out of Tinian, but they don\u2019t mind competing out of Saipan. Let\u2019s just hope that the Legislature will find the guts to do something about this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, Tenorio submitted to the CNMI Legislature a draft bill that would establish a casino industry on Saipan. The lawmakers have yet to act on the proposal.<\/p>\n
Proposition A, which would legalize controlled casino gambling on Guam, will be on the November general election ballot. The initiative made by a group called Citizens for Economic Diversity would create a Guam Casino Gaming Control Commission, and limit casino operations to hotels with 100 or more rooms.<\/p>\n
This early, polls show the initiative gaining a significant support from voters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Saipan may be pressured to pass its own casino gaming law if voters approve an initiative that would legalize controlled casino gambling on Guam this November, according to a Tinian Dynasty Hotel and Casino executive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83817\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}