IT WOULD appear, based on a report in yesterday's edition of The Gleaner, that the P.J. Patterson administration is taking a gradual, but pragmatic step towards allowing the operation of casinos in Jamaica.
The reality is, as the Prime Minister told journalists at a press briefing at his office on Friday, that in many places in Jamaica, casinos are de facto in operation, minus a few pieces of equipment. For many years hotels and other places of entertainment have had games rooms, some clearly labelled "casinos" within a few metres of their front office reception desks.
By going the whole hog, in a manner of speaking, the Government would have abandoned the pretence of adhering to some ill-defined morality that says casino gambling is either sinful or likely to bring on the worst forms of social decadence, but betting on horse-racing, and in more recent times Drop Pan, Cash Pot, lottos etc. was fine and acceptable.
Principal spokesmen for the anti-gambling church community have made it easy not to take them seriously in their objections to casinos, having quietly acquiesced to the flood of other games of chance across the island. It seems, with a few exceptions, they have reserved their anti-gambling stridency for one form of betting while being as silent as lambs on the others. We caution however that the expectation that casinos will bring some major fillip to the Jamaican economy may be little more than misplaced optimism.
Studies from elsewhere, principally the United States, continue to show many negative social spin-offs linked to casinos, never mind some economic boon. Indeed according to a more recent report out of the U.S. the much anticipated influx of investment did not materialise in Nevada as promised by the pro-casino lobby. Officials acknowledge that for all the money in town, the casino era has created all-inclusive gaming halls and led to the closing of restaurants, nightclubs, cinemas and stores, and thriving business districts turned into lacklustre collections of barber shops, pawn shops, nail salons, delis and massage parlours.
Critics have charged that the pro-casino lobby has often attempted to delude with exaggerated claims that they benefit communities by creating jobs, tourism and economic development. Former Nevada deputy attorney general Chuck Gardner put it succinctly: "No one in the history of mankind has ever developed or operated a casino out of a burning desire to improve the lot of humanity."
We can accept nevertheless that there are tourists who won't mind parting with their money and that they want a variety of ways to be entertained, including having access to casinos. We think it is just high time to cut the hypocrisy and get on with the show.
The Government has committed to a review of the issue to be led by the Betting Gaming and Lotteries Commission. This is against the background of the Prime Minister himself seeing the immediate economic prospects being influenced in large measure by huge hotel investments. We say it is time to be pragmatic and bring on the rest of a casino infrastructure that is already largely embedded here.
