Malaysia's PM Anwar Ibrahim denies claims of planning to build a second casino in Johor's Forest City

Malaysia's government has denied a Bloomberg report that said the country was looking to allow a casino to operate in the RM450 billion ($94.3 billion) Forest City project in Johor. 

On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that Malaysia Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim last week met with two of the country’s richest people, Genting Group casino billionaire Lim Kok Thay and lottery billionaire magnate Vincent Tan of Berjaya Corporation. The trio reportedly discussed developing an integrated casino resort in Forest City, looking to revitalize the troubled reclaimed islands.

However, Anwar denied the claims on Thursday: "Not true. That’s a lie," said Anwar on Thursday while speaking with reporters at an event in Putrajaya regarding the purported casino discussions.

Forest City is a one-square-mile mixed-use development on reclaimed land on Malaysia’s southern tip bordering Singapore. The almost $100 billion scheme was initiated in 2016 by a Chinese consortium. King Ibrahim Iskandar of Johor, who began his five-year term as Malaysia’s king in January, holds a more than 20% stake in the development.   

Proponents of a casino see such a development as a boon for the Forest City township. Several Johor-based businessmen also told Strait Times that proposals for a casino in Johor have been mooted for over a decade, as south Johor’s Iskandar region, conceived as a development corridor in 2006, has failed to live up to expectations.

"There has not been a strong pull factor. A casino would have major spillover effects as high-value individuals would make footfall here and boost other commercial sectors," sources familiar with the matter said, according to the above-mentioned media.

Although Johor’s state government claimed on April 22 that 70% of the properties in Forest City have been sold, it has repeatedly been dubbed a “ghost town” due to low occupancy. Forest City is being built by a joint-venture company led by Chinese developer Country Garden.

It should be noted that Lim's Genting possesses the only casino license in Malaysia at the company’s Genting Highlands resort in Pahang. Genting also owns and operates Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore.

A Genting-built casino in Forest City could reignite interest in the economic zone, as wealthy gamblers throughout Asia seek a new destination for their gambling trips as the Macau market continues to change.

However, opening a second casino in Malaysia could prompt a political backlash from the Malay-Muslim majority, which the Anwar government is already struggling to win over. About two-thirds of these voters backed the opposition in the 2023 polls to elect new administrations in six states.

Although building a casino is politically sensitive as Islam prohibits gambling, those who support the idea note that the existing casino in Genting Highlands has operated for more than half a century without any issue, as regulations bar Muslims from entering the gaming halls. Therefore, Genting Highlands relies almost exclusively on foreigners. Lim’s father, Lim Goh Tong, secured Malaysia’s lone casino concession in 1969.

Genting has since become one of the world’s largest gaming companies. Along with Malaysia and Singapore, Genting has integrated casino resorts in New York, Las Vegas, the Philippines, the Bahamas, and the United Kingdom.

According to its annual reports, Genting Malaysia contributed nearly RM5 billion ($1.04 billion) to government coffers annually before the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020. A similar boost from a new gaming-centered attraction would help ease the Anwar administration’s struggles to rein in the fiscal deficit, having inherited over RM1.5 trillion in debt and liabilities.