Gamblor’s World

The Guardian

Wednesday April 18, 2007

Have we no greater ambition than training our young people to be doormen and
croupiers?

Peter Hetherington

The evening skyline in the city closest to my home is illuminated with
brash, neon signs above tacky, new casinos, including a big health centre
and gym recently converted into a gambling emporium. Beside the endless bars
and clubs offering cheap liquor I’ve recently noticed new hoardings
advertising “fast bucks” at the gaming tables.

If you have been led to believe that Britain’s gambling revolution stalled
after the recent House of Lords decision to throw out an order licensing 17
new casinos - including one Las Vegas-style supercomplex in Manchester -
think again. Hundreds of “smaller” ones are emerging in towns and cities
where, sadly, leisure now appears the only industry alongside retailing.

Saner voices outside the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS)
might argue that the country has enough gambling dens without the need for
the bigger ones being pushed by the culture secretary, Tessa Jowell. She
insists that her plans are “still very much alive”, after the Lords
rejection. I wonder.

Over the next few weeks the issue will resurface again in the high court,
which has granted the British Casino Association, representing current
operators, a judicial review of the plans. It fears a loss of trade from the
“big 17″. But there is now wider concern in parliament and in government,
aside from rebellious backbenchers who clearly feel - yet again - that the
DCMS has taken leave of its senses. Sources close to Gordon Brown think that
the chancellor is unconvinced by Jowell’s argument that a supercasino in -
say - Manchester will merely be one element in a leisure-cum- entertainment
complex, and the key to regenerating a depressed inner-city area.

By now, he might have also discovered that a few cities have reservations as
well. Take Nottingham. Its council has resolutely refused to join the great
municipal gambling bandwagon amid police concerns about the potential of
supercasinos to generate antisocial behaviour. These are allied to what the
authority says are clear dangers to vulnerable people and children.
Councillors have decided not to issue any new casino licences in a city that
already has eight venues. Aside from the moral objections of dragging the
poor and vulnerable into a spiral of more debt, one senior councillor
recently asked: “Have we no greater ambition than training our young people
to become doormen and croupiers?”

Like others, I have viewed the DCMS defence of the expanding casino culture
with growing incredulity, frequently asking myself whether Jowell and her
ministerial colleagues occupy a parallel universe to the rest of parliament,
and the country.

The reality hit me last year when interviewing the boss of one of the larger
operators, which had just opened a new casino a few miles from where I live.
He was competing with three others in the city. Had its arrival affected
their business? No. “Our arrival has tapped into a vein of hitherto unmet
demand,” he volunteered. “Sure, we’ve got to offer a decent slug of the pie
to local communities, but don’t forget only 3% of the population of the UK
will visit a casino in any one year, while in parts of the US, penetration
can be anything from 10%-25%, so if you took the view that over a period of
time penetration in the UK was going to move in that direction, then
suddenly the numbers start to look appealing.”

And there you have it. Soon the issue may return to the Commons, with the
prospect of a compromise emerging - perhaps proceeding with the 16 “smaller”
casinos, minus the super complex. But, hopefully, that is likely to be
overtaken by events, with Brown’s likely accession in the summer. Then he
might, hopefully, turn his attention to the DCMS, which brought us
round-the-clock drinking and now threatens lottery good causes by grossly
underestimating the cost of the 2012 Olympics - and return it to the real
world.

· Peter Hetherington writes on community affairs and regeneration