Could Video Games be legalized in Olympic? This is an ideal of the president of Japan

Arcane laws meant to stop illegal gambling have prevented paid video game tournaments in Japan, stunting the domestic market even as e-sports has become a multibillion-dollar global industry. Over the past few months, negotiations between four e-sports groups and Japan's consumer protection agency have yielded a workaround to exempt professional gamers from the rules.

Takeo Kawamura, a lawmaker from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Liberal Democratic Party, said the ruling party might be willing to go further, by amending laws to ensure people's rights to earn a living playing games. The goal, he said, is to remove impediments and make it possible to win Olympic medals someday.

"If we need more legal wiggle room to hold tournaments, we can use a special law or other provisions as needed," Kawamura said in an interview this week. "Once we have a gold medalist like, say, Daichi Suzuki, then people will begin to see" that video games are a sport, he said, referring to the celebrated Japanese swimmer.

Competitive gaming is still finding its footing in Japan, but globally it's already a huge business. By 2020, total revenue from e-sports will reach $5 billion annually, almost as much as the world's biggest soccer league today, according to market researcher Activate. Tournaments in China and South Korea routinely draw tens of thousands of spectators.

Japan is quickly laying the groundwork to catch up. At the Olympic committee's urging, the four e-sports industry groups announced in September that they're merging to lobby more effectively for paid gaming. In November, lawmakers from both the LDP and the opposition formed a coalition supporting e-sports, with Kawamura as its chairman. Then the following month, the industry announced plans to start issuing licenses to exempt professionals from gambling laws, similar to Japan's approach to professional golf, baseball and tennis players.

Source: Bloomberg