After spending three and a half hours listening to Kazuo Okada, the deposed founder of Japan’s Universal Entertainment and dispossessed co-founder of Wynn Resorts, and spending twice as many years following the saga of Okada and Universal versus Steve Wynn and Wynn Resorts, two things are clear: Okada is right, and Wynn is right.
A central feature of the dispute, Okada Manila opened two years ago as the third integrated resort in the Philippine capital’s Entertainment City district. The US$2 billion casino resort is the world’s first IR project to be solely owned and operated by a Japanese company, seen as potential advantage in the competition for a coveted casino license in Japan.