Concerns raised over development costs for ‘integrated resort’, as well as crime and gambling addiction

The focus of Japan’s quest to open its first casino is a human-made island in Osaka that, if the city’s government gets its way, will end decades of wrangling over the country’s fraught relationship with poker tables and slot machines.

On a recent weekday morning there was little to suggest that Yumeshima – “Dream Island” – could, by the end of the decade, be the site of an unprecedented experiment with gambling in the world’s third biggest economy.