Limited casino gambling in a secular state
PERSPECTIVES
By Prem Misir
Guyana Chronicle
January 22, 2007
AS OF now, Asia is spreading its legs to accommodate a fast-moving casino boom.
Singapore recently awarded a licence to the Las Vegas Sands to construct the first casino in the city-state, at a cost of $3.2 billion; it is expected to start operations in 2009 and will be the world’s most expensive casino complex.
The Singapore Government believes that the casino industry will boost tourism, create jobs, increase the Gross Domestic Product, and stimulate Singapore’s evolution into a dynamic service economy.
In Michigan, the casino wagering tax is 18% of gross revenue and a casino also pays a Municipal Service Fee that is the greater of 1.2% of gross revenue or $4 million. These tax revenues are apportioned as 45% to the State’s Aid Fund and 55% to public safety and economic development.
The University of Wisconsin-Parkside has a Center for Gambling Studies. Professor Ronald Pavalko sees gambling as a booming industry; in 1994, gambling accounted for US$40 billion in legal wages in the U.S., and that figure today is fast reaching astronomical proportions.
Gambling of all types is now authorised in 48 states of the United States of America, except Utah and Hawaii. Arthur Cosby of the gaming research Group of the Social Science Research Council of Mississippi State University found that about 61% of Americans wagered in legalised gambling at the time of the study; of course not including illegal gambling.
Sheppard and Smith acknowledged that casino gambling is now a multibillion dollar industry in Canada, mainly in seven provinces. They found, too, that most Canadians see gambling as a leisure-time activity, with a minority of problem gamblers.
Bo Bernhard of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, suggested that only about 1% or 2% of Americans (three million) may be classified as problem gamblers; and that today, Las Vegas, the home of casino gambling, is the most popular tourist attraction in the U.S.
Desmond Lam in the Journal of Gambling Studies found that gambling is popular globally. He also found that religious faiths did not have a significant impact on gambling participation; and that the greater the gambling participation, the less there was religious participation.
But in Guyana, the casino story is different, depending upon who the story teller is. Reactions against limited casino gambling in Guyana have reached a fever-pitch point, reactions mainly emanating from some religious faiths.
The furore stems from the Government of Guyana’s recent tabling of the Casino Gambling (Amendment) Bill 2006, an amendment clearly aimed at injecting impetus and impulse to the embryonic tourism industry.
The casino story tellers should say, too, that Guyana today epitomises a cherished and great multiethnic and multi-religious mosaic, an indefinable and necessary sense of oneness. And a vital aspect underpinning this unity is that Guyana is a secular state.
Whatever groups constitute the religious majority in this country, Guyana must continue to be a land where people of all religious persuasions must experience freedom of faith and worship. The premise is that if we endorse the view that any religious majority must call the shots by virtue of its majority basis, then we would fragment the whole concept of national unity.
We have to be respectful of each other’s positions, however difficult and painful that may be. It is one way of ensuring freedom of independent thought and action.
As is the case with all issues, it is not sufficient to use one problem-solving approach; several approaches are necessary to disentangle and resolve a problem. Some stakeholders currently present the proposed limited casino gambling in Guyana as a problem. These stakeholders believe that even limited gambling would increase the number of gamblers and eventually produce ‘problem gamblers’, creating a pathology on themselves and their families.
Problem gambling is serious and must not be ignored. However, Blaszczynski, Ladouceur, and Shaffer in the Journal of Gambling Studies presented gambling problems as a public health issue, arguing for reducing the incidence and prevalence of gambling-related harm.
They proposed the Reno Model: principles to guide the gambling industry, health service, consumers, and government, in endorsing and implementing responsible gambling and harm minimization.
And the Jagdeo Administration, through the Casino Gambling (Amendment) Bill, among other measures, is cognizant of the mechanisms needed to prevent and treat problem gamblers. The Reno Model is only one such mechanism.
The religious faiths in Guyana quite appropriately are expressing concerns over the introduction of Casino gambling; and the Jagdeo Administration already has endorsed these concerns through proposing limited casino gambling; limited to tourists in hotels with at least 150 rooms, and indeed, not to the Guyana public.
At any rate, the faiths’ current concerns are only one approach to understanding gambling. There are others; as where other countries use casino gambling to boost their economic development.
But in the end, the multifaceted approaches to addressing casino gambling have to be negotiated within the context of Guyana being a secular state.