How can casinos corrupt Guyanese?
Freddie Kissoon column
Kaieteur News
January 18, 2007

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The most unacceptable aspect of the casino debate is that, leaving out the churches that have a fixed position on these things, none of the anti-casino writers have proven their case that the world of the casinos brings disaster to whatever country it goes to. To my mind that is where the strength of their argument lies.

It is best to keep the morality argument out of it. The morality point is unadulterated nonsense and has no place in any scientific argument. Just what is morally wrong behaviour? Morality is such a battered criterion or a worn out tool of analysis that it is best left out of any conceptualisation on the role of life. I know this is an extremely dangerous statement to make but people who use moral reasoning to pronounce on the difference between good and bad behaviour cannot tell us what are inferior and superior moral values.

I live in a country where moral values went out the window a long time ago yet I continue to hear that the introduction of casinos will morally destroy this nation. Guyana is already a morally mashed-up society. Some of these people that argue against casinos just want to oppose the Government of Guyana, like Mike Mc Cormack and Christopher Ram, that they damage their credibility by subjective opinion-making on the role of casinos.

Let's start with the moral foundation of the Guyanese society. Are we a morally upright nation? The analysis on what constitute moral values will show that we are one of the most morally empty nation-states in the world. I would like for the church advocates against casinos to tell me how they voted in the last elections.

I have grown up in a country where people vote because the party is a ‘coolie' one or a ‘black man party'. Now what can be more ethically sickening than to decide that you want your country to be administered not by men and women of integrity but people who come from your race?

Since 1957, we have been engaged in this moral outrage including the very churchmen that tell us what is good and what is bad. They too vote along race lines. We do not have casinos yet our immoralities are palpably more glaring than our CARICOM partners that have casino gambling.

Look at these horrible statistics. Guyana's per capita has more incest cases, more car-jacking, more pedophiliac accused, a higher homicidal rate, a higher suicidal rate than Suriname, Trinidad, Antigua and the Bahamas – all four that have casino gambling.

All four have huge pockets of Guyanese and it is doubtful that they frequent the casinos.

Surely, if you are going to argue against a process, then comparative statistics have to come into play. Christopher Ram and Mike McCormack tell us that casino gambling brings money laundering and drug traffickers. But the statistics of successful prosecutions must be on the internet. Why don't they show us them.

How many UK citizens are being hauled before the courts for drug trafficking where they have casinos? There is a bigger money laundering problem in New York, where there are no casinos than in Nevada where they abound?

Mike Mc Cormack quotes a UK report as pointing to the danger of casino gambling in that country. Mr. Cormack latches on to that. But why the UK alone? Where is the problem with casino gambling in the Bahamas, Trinidad, Antigua and Suriname? What the reader has to note about the presentations of Mc Cormack and Ram is that there are no sweeping statistics on the danger of casino gambling from them on those parts of the world where the machines are in operation. Mc Cormack chose the UK, Ram, the US.

The question is; are there countries where casino gambling is just another form of economic activity.

You read the horrible things these people say that come with casino gambling and you want to know why then aren't there terrible things going on in Suriname, Antigua, Trinidad and the Bahamas and the people there are running away.

How silly can a debater get when you think that Trinidad and the Bahamas are two of the richest Third World countries and they both have casino activities?

Joining the debate is an editorial from the Kaieteur News yesterday. KN adopts the position that Lotto is just small potatoes. The stakes are bigger in casino gambling. There are two rebuttals to this. First, even if Lotto is just a hundred dollar a ticket it can still result in a large number of ruined lives. KN does not accept this. It says, “Surely, no one has gone broke playing Lotto.” Is that so? Can I see the evidence? Do you know how many poor people working below the minimum wage buy six to ten tickets a week? Do you know how disastrous that is for their economic welfare?

Secondly, if the stakes are high in casino gambling then why does a country want to prevent rich persons from gambling in casinos? That is their right.

Do you know that right here in Georgetown there are wealthy people that engage in nocturnal gambling and the stakes are just as high as on casino tables? My main point in my defence of casino betting is that the arguments against it are not theoretically strong. Take the KN editorial yesterday. One of its main adumbrations (like that of the churches) is that the poor may spend their money on this high-stake betting. The invalidity in this approach is as clear as day.

Beyonce, the American superstar, is starting a clothes line with her mother. You know how expensive that fashion will be. Young, poor girls will queue up to buy the items. Do you know how expensive the brand name shoe, Clarks, is?

Most poor youths have a pair. A boutique owner of a very high-class outfit once provided me with invaluable sociological material. She told me: “Freddie, rich people are cheap, they don't buy my clothes. You know who buys them? Those very south Georgetown people you defend.”

So what is my point? Why single out casino gambling as the only type of activity that will entice the poorer classes to spend their money on? Can we please get a strong intellectual exchange on what is bad about casino gambling and leave out the nonsense about moral this and moral that.

I end by warning you that to vote race is immoral.