Earl Moxam, Senior Gleaner Writer
PRIME MINISTER P.J Patterson disclosed yesterday that the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Commission was engaged in a comprehensive review of casino gaming, including visits to destinations which have casinos "to determine the best option to consider".
The Prime Minister's revelation during a press conference with senior journalists at his Jamaica House office, represents a fundamental shift in the Government's policy against casino gambling.
Mr. Patterson conceded that there were inherent contradictions in the continued maintenance of an official ban on casinos, while hotels and other businesses freely operate games rooms, which stop just short of the official designation of a casino.
The present thinking of the Government, the Prime Minister said, was being influenced in part by an analysis provided by a private sector group that had been mandated to undertake its own review of the issue.
That private sector group was mandated to study the matter following a meeting with the Government at a retreat in Montego Bay, St. James a year ago.
Despite that analysis, however, the Prime Minister is maintaining that "We're not there yet", in so far as a firm decision on a policy shift is concerned.
Any such decision, he said, would have to await the outcome of the State's own review, currently being led by the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Commission.
Casino gambling has long been a contentious issue in Jamaica, often coloured by political ideology and religious considerations.
The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) administration of the 1980s dropped plans to introduce casino gaming when it came under pressure from the then Opposition People's National Party (PNP) and from very vocal church organisations.
The PNP, in government since February 1989, has been bombarded by protagonists on both sides of the issue.
The protagonists were given hope in the late 1990s when Francis Tulloch, as Tourism Minister, appeared to endorse the idea of a Government rethink on the matter. More recently, Aloun Assamba, the current Minister of Tourism, also suggested a rethink on the issue.
However, such hopes were quickly crushed by the Govern-ment which, up to now, has not yielded on the casino issue.
TOLERANT
Critics, however, have highlighted the fact that the country has grown more tolerant of all forms of gambling, epitomised by the fact that the lottery, outlawed in the early 1970s returned with a bang in the 1990s.
The link between casinos and new investment prospects in the hotel sector has also emerged as a serious consideration.
News came recently that prospects for divestment of the Government's shares in the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel may be linked to one of the potential purchasers receiving a licence to introduce a casino as part of the new operation.
The Prime Minister, in his analysis of the country's economic prospects for the upcoming fiscal year, said that he expected it to be "the most significant" for foreign investment in many years, influenced in large measure by prospects for huge hotel investments.
