Why Casino Scotland is dicey

This is the Draft Gambling Bill. It is due to be published soon. The big American gaming companies can scarcely conceal their enthusiasm for a relaxation in our gambling legislation that could see Las Vegas-style casinos in every large town in Britain, The Department of Culture, Media and Sport has confirmed that there will be no ceiling on the number of mega casinos with million-pound slot machines.

Tony Banks, a Labour MP and member of the joint committee for the Draft Gambling Bill, said this week that there was every chance that every large town could find itself with its own casino. "Indeed," he declared, "I would see nothing wrong with that whatsoever.

"We are liberalising the rules and they are far too restrictive at the moment."

According to the Times yesterday, proposals for the first 96 casinos across Britain include eight such casinos in London, one in Torquay, two in Blackpool and many other large English towns, four in Aberdeen and five in Glasgow. One is envisaged in Leith.

Such casinos will, of course, be subject to local government vetting and control. But they are being promoted as agencies of economic regeneration, and both government and local authorities have a vested interest as they will be beneficiaries of the substantial amounts of extra tax revenue generated through business rates and betting taxation.

Britain’s domestic gaming industry is opposed to what it sees as a red carpet being rolled out to America’s gambling corporations. The industry body has attacked the government’s proposals as "naive". And barely a week ago a report was published showing that gambling in Britain had increased fivefold in three years, with the numbers of problem gamblers needing help reckoned at 350,000.

Now, I have no particular objection to gambling per se. Nor, I believe, do the vast majority of people who buy Premium Bonds or who have the occasional flutter on the National Lottery. Sometimes I feel my Standard Life endowment policy was a mad flutter, and that I would have been better with a Premium Bond.

But we are already the biggest gamblers in Europe. Over the past three years, betting-industry turnover has shot from 7.6 billion to a record 39.4 billion in the 12 months to September. Gambling in all forms raked in 63.8 billion.

Now come proposals for Las Vegas-style casinos across the country. This is sure to alter the character as well as magnitude of our growing addiction to gambling. They also imply a social change of incalculable consequence. It strikes me as odd, to put it no stronger, that a government finds itself unable to address the gigantic black hole in pension provision but has time enough to put through legislation such as this, which can only make the problem much worse.

So I cannot help but feel uneasy about the almost total absence of any debate or discussion on this legislation.

Will casinos really help to bring about urban regeneration, as is claimed? What of the jobs lost and families ruined as a result? Are we sure the benefits will outweigh the costs of the social dislocation that gambling can cause?

I find it hard to share Mr Banks’s confidence that he "can see nothing wrong" with a casino in very large town. While such establishments are generally careful to operate within the law, they do tend to attract criminals and money-launderers. And while the appeal of such establishments aspires to be classless, they do have a reputation of relieving not so much "the rich" but those less affluent in society of their savings.

Scotland has particularly good cause for making sure this legislation is subjected to the closest discussion and scrutiny. Despite - some might say because of - our lower-than-average household income, we have a predilection for gambling.

According to a YouGov survey for the accountants KPMG, while the average spend on gambling per head across the UK is 52 a year, Scots spend on average 80. This figure excludes the National Lottery.

When asked if they were more likely to visit a casino as part of a larger leisure/retail complex, 41 per cent of Scots surveyed said they would, compared to a UK average of 33 per cent.

Good news, surely, for Glasgow’s SECC, which is set to build Scotland’s first 162 million "super casino" as part of the second redevelopment of the Queen’s Dock in Glasgow. The resort project is expected to include a casino consisting of 1,250 slot machines and 50 tables, a five-star 150-room luxury hotel, associated bars, restaurants and leisure facilities as well as a huge multi-storey car park. Construction is expected to be complete by mid-2007 if deregulation goes ahead.

BUT before rushing to congratulate Glasgow on its blessing, I must be tolerably sure it has really received one. Australia underwent gambling deregulation in the early Nineties and now bitterly regrets that it did. The proliferation of gambling has led to an explosion of gambling addiction and related social problems. Between 1993 and 2003, gamblers lost a staggering A$70 billion (28 billion) on poker machines. During this period, some A$30 billion (12 billion) has accrued to state-government coffers.

A backlash against the gambling explosion in Australia is now under way. The West Australian government is the only state that does not allow poker machines in hotels and clubs. "Governments across the country [are] being seduced by the promise of huge profits and subscribed to poker machines," said Geoff Gallup, the West Australian premier. "But they are now seeing the untold devastation that they wreak."

Up to 40 per cent of revenues from gaming machines is reckoned by the anti-gaming lobby to come from problem gamblers, many of whom are poor and addicted. South Australia is now set to become the first state in the country to reduce the number of poker machines in pubs and clubs

Back in Britain, a spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport says that protecting gamblers and vulnerable people is still the number-one priority of the draft bill. But Tim Batstone, president of the domestic gaming industry lobby group, calls the government’s approach "naive". The government’s actions are, he says, "totally perverse". Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, "has made much of the fact that the main driver of the bill is ‘the protection of the vulnerable’. But common sense tells you that will not be the case". He fears that the lack of statutory limits on the number of casinos will cause serious damage to the existing 8.5 billion British gaming industry.

Quite how "Casino Scotland" plays with the Scottish Executive I am not at all sure. But given the devastation that gambling is known to cause, and the associated debt, humiliation, crime and family breakdown, someone should surely question the wisdom of the path we are on.

Pensioner poverty is bad enough. This legislation could turn the whole country into a nation of losers.