Tuesday, January 16, 2007

THE SIGNAL sent by the Guyana Government that it plans to legalise casino
gambling for Cricket World Cup (CWC) 2007 and beyond, has led to a number of
Christian groups in that country closing ranks against any such move. The
government does not seem prepared to back down on its plans but the church
groups have been strident in their calls for the matter to be dropped,
stressing that they are "unalterably opposed" to the government's proposal.
Such talk is intended to indicate that there is nothing to discuss for where
people are "unalterably opposed" to any matter it follows that they do not
intend to give ground even if a reasonable argument can be presented by
those they opposed. Yet if we give thought to how a Christian community like
The Bahamas has managed to benefit from casino gambling, we might realise
that casino gambling is something that deserves to be discussed. The glaring
irony is that while a number of Christians draw a line at casino gambling,
claiming that it always attracts the worst elements like prostitutes and
gangsters, it could be instructive to find out why it is not so in The
Bahamas. We also must realise that while voices in the Christian Church are
raised against casino gambling, they have remained most silent about other
forms of gambling in most of the countries where they were prone to raise
objections. We only have to look around the Caribbean to see that where
there are no gambling casinos, gambling still goes on in a multiplicity of
organised ways. The church might well be embarrassed over its ambivalence on
the gambling issue, even more so when it is seen organising gaming to raise
funds. At the same time, it is debateable that the presence of casinos in a
country like Guyana will suddenly lead to a crime spiral given the existing
crime scene. In contrast, The Bahamas still has a lower crime rate than most
of those Caribbean countries that do not have casinos.
Guyana, while claiming it is a community where 57 per cent of the country is
Christian, will have to consider the other 43 per cent, including those who
follow other religions and who might not be opposed to gambling in any form.
It cannot be denied that casino gambling centring around the Cricket World
Cup 2007 in Guyana comes over as an act of expediency by a government doing
its utmost to cash in where it can. We all know that the country needs all
the money it can get. For all we know once the decision-makers had cast
their eyes to the north where The Bahamas has been prospering with its
tourism along with casino gambling being a major attraction for visitors,
they suddenly might have realised that they could in a short time have a
structure in place to profit from casino gambling as well.

What is certain is that whether or not the Guyana gambling project succeeds,
it is not the last time we will be hearing about issues pertaining to casino
gambling in the region. It will come as no surprise if other governments in
the English-speaking Caribbean begin considering the possibility of doing
what Guyana is hoping to do, not necessarily for Cricket World Cup 2007 but
later.