After affecting the people and their businesses, the demonetisation drive has drastically affected major stakeholders from the entertainment industry ‘Casinos’ as they were adversely affected in terms of business income.
Contrary to this, the collection of commercial tax has seen an increase in tax revenue despite demonetisation.
“Last year in December we collected Rs 236 crore of tax revenue but this year there has been a rise in collection of tax to Rs 244 crore even after the demonetisation, this shows that the tax revenue has not been affected in Goa,” said Dipak Bandekar, Commissioner of Commercial Taxes.
The Commissioner informed that they were in regular talks with the casino industry post demonetisation as a third of Goa’s total entertainment tax comes from casinos.
No official comments had been made by the casino office bearers but sources from the casino industry said since demonetisation, tourist influx had reduced and with that a the number of VIP/VVIPs who used visit casinos has drastically stopped, thus resulting in huge losses.
“Soon after demonetisation, we were asked by the management to stop accepting Rs 500 and 1,000 notes and this created a sudden panic as casino counters faced shortage of cash and we were not able to make payments to customers and vice versa, even though debit and credit cards were accepted,” a casino source informed.
Further, it has been revealed that guests who did not have cash preferred to play using credit cards, debit cards and through other banking channels.
“On a average, around 750-800 people used to visit the casino on a daily basis, but soon after demonetisation this had been reduced to only 150-200 people thus resulting in losses of Rs 13 lakh on normal days and around Rs 40 lakh on weekends. But the December peak season proved to bring some relief to the industry as lots of people flocked to Goa for Christmas and New Year,” the source added.
Off-shore casinos attract huge number of people across India, especially from Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, New Delhi and UP but post demonetisation a most of them didn’t turn up due to cash shortage.
“Most tourists made payments via credit card for entry and for buying playing chips but soon after winning the casinos were unable to dispense cash thus allowing the winners to take home the chips to later exchange the same for cash prize,” sources informed.
It was further revealed that casinos in Goa resorted to cost cutting by reducing staff. Soon after demonetization, the gambling industry was hit by losses in crores of rupees.
When Herald spoke to those in the multiplexes in Panjim and Porvorim, it was revealed that they had no major impact as most the payments even before demonetization were made via cards.
