Three people aged between 40-41 have been arrested by the Osaka Prefectural Police on suspicion of illegally laundering online casino gambling money.

According to Japanese news media, the police found around ¥4.9bn ($35m) paid to the three suspects’ bank accounts from around 10,000 people who took part in overseas online gambling. It should be noted that online gambling remains illegal in Japan, even if the operators/ service providers offer legal operations offshore. 

The suspects were all company executives from Osaka Prefecture, two being Osaka City locals and the other residing in Takatsuki. 

The prefectural police stated that the suspects hid their criminal actions by having the payments to their bank accounts be placed over 140,000 occasions starting from March 2022. This money included gambling bets made to overseas online casino Yous Casino, which amounted up to ¥4.9bn, with about 10,000 people involved. 

The suspects ran their own operations individually, hiding their online casino services behind contracts meant for sales of products or other non-gaming services. Of the ¥4.9bn, ¥2.9bn was paid back to gambling participants as winnings while the remaining ¥2bn was considered the casino operators’ profits, in which 1.5-2.0% of said profit went to the three suspects.

Elsewhere in Japan, it was announced by MGM Resorts Japan that it was planning to start construction preparation works for a new integrated resort (IR) worth about $10bn in Osaka City. 

Osaka IR was initiated in 2023, when Osaka IR Corporation, a joint venture between MGM International and Japan’s Orix Corp. signed an agreement with Osaka Prefecture and Osaka City for an integrated resort plan in Yumeshima, Osaka.