Enlarge imageBy Pete Harrison
LONDON (Reuters) - Local governments are clamouring for the government to resume a plan for eight Las Vegas-style supercasinos as some of the biggest cities battle for the sole licence now on offer, councillors said on Friday.
They said 20 local councils had signed a joint statement calling for the number of licences to be restored to eight after it was cut to one under pressure from anti-addiction groups.
When it overhauled the 40-year-old gambling laws late last year, the government promised eight regional supercasinos with hotels, bars, restaurants and sports complexes.
They envisaged the supercasinos, located in regions of high unemployment, providing jobs and helping local regeneration.
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But anti-addiction campaigners, the Conservative Party and the Daily Mail newspaper opposed the plan, and the number of the regional supercasinos was cut back to just one.
Havering Borough Council, east of London, is leading the push.
"This is gathering momentum," Havering Council leader Michael White told Reuters.
"We have a cross-party conference in the House of Commons next week, and I recently had a letter from the ministry (in charge of gambling) saying the door was open for talks."
ASKING FOR A RETHINK
John McGuigan, Director of City Development for Coventry in the West Midlands, told Reuters: "At the moment there’s a lot of pressure on the government. We’re asking them to rethink."
The move could provide a victory to the Department for Culture Media and Sport, effectively endorsing its original plan, but on Friday a spokesman would only reiterate that it was proceeding on the basis of one supercasino.
Richard Caborn, the minister in charge of gambling, said late last year the government would not initiate change, but would consider it if there were support from parliamentarians, local authorities and the public.
White of Havering Council said the initial debate about supercasinos had become too politicised in the run up to last year’s general election, and as a result 40,000 job opportunities had been lost.
One analyst said the Conservative Party had only opposed the government’s plan for eight supercasinos because it knew it could inflict a timely defeat on the government just before the election. Now a return to support for eight might be possible, he added.
London, another of the cities bidding for a supercasino, is also calling for change. "We favour two pilot casino projects," Andrew Barry-Purssell of the mayor’s office said.
Blackpool, widely seen as front-runner in the battle for the single licence on offer, said it was not involved in the push for more.
The initiative to increase the number of supercasinos could boost international corporations like Caesar’s Entertainment and Las Vegas Sands Corp., which were interested in investing before the plans were scaled back.
At one time, foreign casino firms had earmarked around 5 billion pounds for the UK, and were said to have invested 100 million pounds on lobbying.
Hugo Swire, shadow secretary of state for culture, media and sport, repeated his Conservative Party’s earlier concerns that more supercasinos could lead to problem gambling, but said he was open to re-examining the issue.
"If the Government have fresh evidence to convince Parliament that increasing the number of supercasinos will not lead to more problem gambling, then we will happily look at it," he told Reuters.
