Saturday, February 03, 2007

The decision to give Britain's one super-casino to Manchester is
inexplicable. If just one of these airless temples to 24-hour addiction is
so badly needed as to require state sponsorship, then the obvious place is
Blackpool - if not the Goodwin Sands. Blackpool is Britain's citadel of
vulgarity, indulgence and self-abuse, and could have done with a boost. It
is the perfect site. To capitulate to Manchester's slick marketing is as
gratuitous as would have been a decision for the Greenwich dome. But what is
this to do with government? Libertarians have long pondered how far
politicians should stop the free market from meeting the demands of citizens
who wish to please or harm themselves. Most adults are responsible for their
actions, which is why they are held guilty if they disobey the law. If these
actions damage their families, as gambling certainly does, or disrupt their
communities or annoy their neighbours, then authority customarily
intervenes. But to what extent is an open question. As an inhabitant of the
libertarian fringe, I may dislike all sorts of things but am reluctant to
ban people from doing them: be it drinking, smoking, taking drugs, hunting
foxes, reading pornography, or excluding women from clubs and men from book
prizes. Nor should government be overprescriptive in restricting the offence
such activities cause to others. The job of government may be to ban certain
antisocial behaviour, but mostly it should be to install frameworks whereby
local communities can make such decisions for themselves. If Westminster
does not want a film shown within its borders or Wales does not want
drinking on a Sunday, I may laugh; but that is their decision. Gambling
proliferates in Britain, from bingo to betting on horses and dogs,
scratchcards, raffles, lotteries, fruit machines and poker clubs. There are
casinos aplenty already. Anyone wanting to pull a one-armed bandit or dabble
in roulette, blackjack and poker can find somewhere to do so. As a result,
the stake value of gambling under Labour has soared from £7bn in 1997 to
£48bn in 2005, plus a further £5bn on the lottery. This is hardly an
industry that seems in chronic need of government support. Most countries
are paranoid about supercasinos, treating them like gargantuan opium dens.
Across America they are confined to a few resorts such as Las Vegas and to
native American reservations (such as the "world's biggest" at the Pequots'
Foxwoods casino, in Connecticut). The federal government has also recently
declared all online gaming illegal. Russia is restricting gambling to
designated zones from 2009. Both countries clearly regard easy access to
betting as a social menace - as does most of Europe.

So what persuaded Tessa Jowell to welcome supercasinos to Britain's shores
with open arms? The answer is that the Las Vegas cartel, already under
pressure at home, targeted Britain as the "soft underbelly" of new-wave
gaming in Europe. Either the law or the mafia had the market sewn up in
Scandinavia, France, Italy, Germany and Spain. Blair's government was
regarded as an easy touch, and tens of millions of pounds were spent
lobbying for it. Philip Anschutz invited John Prescott to his Colorado ranch
not for the colour of his eyes. Anschutz's interest in the dome was as a
supercasino, as he made abundantly clear. The only amazement is that none of
the Vegas money appears to have reached Labour party coffers (or will I have
to eat these words?)

Blair and Jowell capitulated with astonishing speed. They passed no laws
against online gaming. Under the 2005 act Jowell said she wanted not one but
40 supercasinos and was beaten back only by the massed ranks of the church
and anti-addiction lobbies. She did not take no for an answer. She retreated
from 40 to eight and then to just one, an inexplicable outcome. Why make big
punters burn petrol crossing the country to Manchester rather than stay
closer to home? Why benefit just one operator and eliminate competition? If
super-gambling is to be suppressed, stop it. If not, leave it to the free
market. The appearance of limp-wristed semi-regulation was incoherent, like
a government trying to be half a virgin.

Jowell's department seems unable to carry the weight of moral responsibility
placed on it. Under pressure from the drinks lobby she legislated to
liberate alcohol consumption in pubs across the land - while those who
supply cannabis and ecstasy in those same pubs are imprisoned in ever
greater numbers. She allows thousands to be crammed into basement raves
across England's cities, yet persecutes any church or social club that dares
to put on a string quartet. She is for more gambling yet against "problem
gaming". There is no rhyme or reason to her nannydom.

Whenever the government tries to ban something people enjoy, it makes a
mess. It tried to ban off-course horse-race betting and had to capitulate to
the high-street betting shop. In an earlier age it capitulated to the gin
shop and the brothel, and then half-uncapitulated to the latter. Now it is
trying to pretend that it disapproves of high-stakes casino gambling while
at the same time wishing to appease the casino lobby.

I imagine this whole argument is on the way to oblivion. The supercasino is
so unappealing (and now inconveniently located) as to be easily undercut by
smaller local ones and by internet sites. In a few years we shall be reading
of casino bankruptcies and closures. The free market will make decisions
that ministers find it hard to make for themselves.

The one question remaining is by what moral compass the cabinet is guided.
How can Jowell and her colleagues patronise the alcohol and gambling lobbies
and yet blindly repress other indulgences and addictions, notably street
drugs. Why are they filling city centres with drunks and gamblers yet
filling prisons with drug users?

The obvious answer to the assault of the supercasino lobby would have been
to leave decisions to the cities in which operators wanted to locate their
premises and to decide on size and regional impact if necessary at planning
appeal. As long as gambling is legal and Blackpool council wants a larger
casino, it should not be the business of London or Jowell or the cabinet to
say no. This is not a matter of postcode morality but of postcode choice.
Instead the government has handed millions of pounds and thousands of jobs
to Manchester, which does not need them, and denied them to Blackpool, which
does. It is plain unfair.