The marooned 6th casino ‘MV Lucky 7’ is creating more news than the five casinos already functioning in the River Mandovi. My friend’s Facebook post, “How long will the government wash its hand off with the Congress soap” sums up the situation. The party, which brought the gambling trade to Goa via changes to the Goa Gambling Act, is unable to rub off the taint, though in the last elections they vowed to remove them all from the Mandovi.
With the Panjim by-election drawing near, the government has even tried to draw the High Court into the mess created by it, claiming that the 6th casino was permitted under the direction of the High Court. Orders passed by the High Court on August 1, 2016, April 4, 2016 and March 8, 2017 reveal that it was the government that was in favour of issuing the licence for the sixth casino. In an attempt to beat the by-election heat, the government tried to wash its hands off with the ‘High Court’ soap.
The ‘Goenkarponn’ alliance partner of the government advocated shifting of casinos to the land. The chairman of the Goa Tourism Development Corporation made a statement, “BJP is against casinos. We have to speak to our alliance partners for this” as though to say, it is the alliance partners who are in favour of casinos! Be that it may appear that we are now moving towards ‘land casinos’ in something called ‘entertainment zones’ – Macau or Singapore style. Panjimites may heave a sigh of relief that the eyesores shall go in three years and Mandovi shall be pollution free.
The issue of shifting casinos to land comes in the wake of an order passed by the High Court on July 11, 2017 that offshore meant the high seas, against the government contention that offshore can also be within a river. The High Court while admitting the petition granted injunction restraining the government from granting further permission for casino licence without seeking permission of the court.
The issue of casinos is not to be seen only as against the pollution of river waters, but the question of whether we should at all allow gambling as part of the tourism policy. Whether we wish to convert ‘Goem’ into a Singapore as advocated, requires serious consideration. Panjim city may be currently dependent on the casino trade. The hotel occupancy has gone up. The ancillary services like transport, restaurants are dependent on that trade. The government gets some revenue but the cost benefit ratio of this industry has not been worked out.
Casinos are a fast method of stimulating the tourism industry. Some employment, little increase in tax revenues and recreational opportunity are to be weighed against, environmental effects, traffic congestion, demand on public infrastructure, increase in crime and pathological gambling leading to bankruptcy and bad debts.
All forms of gambling, like matka, lead to similar effects. But the fact remains that the government has not permitted matka and it is operating on the sly maybe because the police are looking the other way. But casino gambling can survive with official government patronage only.
USA is a pioneer of casino gambling trade. Certain states facing economic crises turned to casino gambling as a solution. Baltimore is a good example. The Atlantic City changed the laws to revive the prosperity of the battered resort town. But these places are yet to see good times.
How much has the casino industry helped the economy is highlighted by a report of Institute of American Values. “Modern slot machines are highly addictive because they get into people’s heads as well as their wallets. They engineer the psychological experience of being in the ‘zone’ a trance-like state that numbs feeling and blots out time/space. For some heavy players, the goal is not wining money. It’s staying in the zone. To maintain this intensely desirable state, players prolong their time on the machine until they run out of money.”
In fact the institute reports that the US government has shirked to study the effect of gambling and that “most research of public health effects of gambling in United States is funded by the industry itself with a careful eye to exonerate itself from blame”.
In 2003, Nevada Governor Kenny Guinn told the State law makers on Las Vegas, “For years, our economy has depended almost exclusively on tourism and gaming, rather than exporting goods and services. Three out of four of our tax dollars are collected from the sales and gaming taxes; taxes vulnerable to swings in the economy. Implicit in this strategy was a belief that the revenues from gaming and tourism could keep pace with our growing and diverse population. Unfortunately this strategy has failed.”
Where Las Vegas failed, how shall we succeed? Irrespective of the benefits, we must run the tiny State without dependence on casino money. How can we keep our young out? Why should fellow Indians be lured to gamble? Our State cannot be allowed to be the gambling capital of India.
(The writer is practising advocate, senior faculty in law and political analyst)
