Tuesday, January 30, 2007

'Super' casinos

In a country that is addicted to gambling, that spends as much money on gambling as on food, the idea of supercasinos is quite obviously stupid. Such sites will be the Tesco of the gambling industry. The first such warehouse of crap slot machines and tacky gaming tables will be located in a poor part of Manchester.

Tessa Jowell assures us that these places will not adopt Las vegas style measures such as free drinks to make people irrationally keep gambling and pumped oxygen to keep punters awake. Presumably this also means that there will be no other 'Las Vegas stlye tricks' such as good food at fair prices, art galleries, shows and other attractions that will balance against the pure gambling.

This government has presided over the liberalisation of drinking culture and the consequent effects with little regard for the people affected and a hand rubbing greed for the tax so generated. It seems that people vulnerable to gambling are the next target for a stealth tax. This is purely preying on the vulnerable.

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