Casinos to Boost Tourism, not Local Poverty

The integrated resorts are thriving in Singapore! For the quarter (1 quarter = 3 months) ending Sept 30, Marina Bay Sands reported net revenue of SGD$631 million, while Resorts World Singapore is expected to report net revenue of $749milion in the quarter ending Nov 11. Analysts expect Singapore's gaming revenues to rival those of the Las Vegas strip by 2012.

We have seen stories of epic losses by some casino patrons in the newspapers here. But little have been told of the ones who take the MRT, bus, or taxi there to wager their hard-earned money. According to our governments own records, by Sept 30, there have been more than 1 million visits by local residents to the casinos. One can thus conclude that a significant portion of the casinos net revenues come from the pockets of family and friends. This revenue then enriches shady foreign corporate entities while it starves our local businesses and families.

When the casinos were proposed to Singaporeans, we were assured that the target clientele of said integrated resorts were tourists. To this end, levies were imposed on Singaporeans: $100 per 24-hour visit or a $2000 annual levy.

Depending on levies to keep Singaporeans out of casinos is obviously a losing proposition.

Our government has shown willingness to protect our citizenry by for example, halting the free bus services from the heartlands that feed the casinos. They have to do the right thing and go a few steps further:

1.
Rescind the $2000 annual levy. This was a hare-brained idea from the start as in order to recoup the investment, the person who pays the levy would actually be encouraged to utilise it as often as possible within the year.

2.
Set a limit to the number of visits into the casino a Singaporean can make in any given year.

3.
For the IRs, require that they demonstrate generate a significant percentage of revenue from foreign patrons vs local patrons.