Easing casino rules

There were reports last week that rules relating to the operation of casinos in Sri Lanka are being broadened in an effort to attract international players into the country. This is something that our beleaguered tourism industry will welcome. The availability of gaming opportunities is a visitor draw, as has been proved at many global destinations and even here during an earlier period. But governments have been ambivalent in their approach to the issue with moral and commercial dimensions opposing each other. As readers are very well aware, there are two established casino businesses already in operation in the country, one of them owned by the politically influential tycoon, Dhammika Perera who earlier this year was appointed to parliament on the SLPP National List replacing former Finance Minister Basil Rajapaksa. He was soon thereafter appointed a cabinet minister.

 Perera, amid the convulsions caused by the Aragalaya that led to both the departure of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, since resigned his portfolio of Investment Promotion. To accept first parliamentary membership and then cabinet office, he quit the chair and board positions in a string of quoted and unquoted companies, including the Hayleys conglomerate, he controls. Whether he will return to the cabinet where more vacancies are due to be filled in the short term is yet an open question. Given speculation at the time he quit the cabinet that he may also vacate his parliamentary seat and whether he would wish to continue the political journey he embarked on remains to be seen. Long considered a Rajapaksa afficionado he, while continuing his business interests, unusually held the position of Secretary to the Ministry of Transport during the Mahinda Rajapaksa presidential tenure.

 Older readers would remember a time when horse racing was conducted in Colombo, Boossa (near Galle) and Nuwara Eliya on a scale far grander than what prevails today with only the Nuwara Eliya race course remaining. But following the election of the SWRD Bandaranaike government in 1956, a ban on the import of race horses and gambling was imposed. This was welcomed, particularly by housewives with gambling addicted husbands flocking to the Colombo racecourse on Saturday afternoons and gambling away their pay packets.

Although horse races were not run here thereafter, the bookies developed a lucrative business accepting bets on the English races. This business thrived despite a ban on the publication of racing news that the mainstream newspapers complied with. But illegal race sheets on British races were freely available and no serious effort made to control the industry that thrives to date. The once grand Colombo race course occupying a vast acreage of prime city land was allowed to run down until then Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, wearing a second hat as Secretary Urban Development, beautified and commercialized the valuable resource.

 Some Colombo five-star hotels were also permitted to run casinos some years ago in a short-lived experiment at a time when the hotel industry was gasping for survival during the war years. More recently the Australian gambling Moghul James Packer wanted to set up here and the ambivalence of the government’s attitude to gambling in the context of lobbies for and against was very visible. This was demonstrated by President Premadasa’s order to peremptorily deport Joe Sim, active in the then casino industry. Even the JKH-controlled Cinnamon Life project, probably the country’s biggest urban development investment ever, had space for gambling in its original design though the developer himself had no plans to enter the industry. It merely wished to let out space to an operator and it was whispered at the time that the pinnacle of government had expressed its preferences on who should get that space.

 Now that a gazette has been issued to legalize and regulate casinos, opening the doors for the entry of global operators effective from Sept. 1, a reversal of the president’s previous outlook, it clearly seems that government has chartered a pragmatic course. Moral objections will obviously arise and there will be questions on how effective the regulatory mechanism will be. Political forces will inevitably mount the bandwagon and whether the administration will hold its ground remains an open question. At one point of time, Sri Lankans were supposed to be not permitted in casinos that ostensibly were exclusively reserved for foreigners. But that was not strictly enforced.

The availability of sexual services in and around casinos was widely rumoured and many ladies of allegedly easy virtue from Eastern Europe, former Soviet Republics and elsewhere were common sights in casino neighbourhoods. The new regulations have taken notice of this factor but how effectively it can be controlled remains to be seen. There is also the question of whether casino operators are paying proper taxes.

Macau, for example and more recently Singapore have done very well with casinos. Most Lankans will not wish this country to be a gambling dependent Macau but Singapore has for long been regarded here as an iconic model of development and good governance. It would be freely admitted that the way Singapore is run and how we run our affairs are chalk and cheese. Thus, even a shadow of the efficiency with which regulatory affairs are conducted there will not be possible here.

We cannot also forget that narcotic drugs first significantly entered this country with hippy tourists in the sixties and seventies. Links between organized crime and industries such as drugs, illicit liquor and gambling are easily developed. We already have serious drug and illicit liquor problems. But our tourism industry in which billions of rupees have been invested and a significant proportion of the work force depends on for a living needs all possible support; and so also the revenue-strapped treasury coffers.