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Casinos - prop or opp?

Monday, March 05, 2007

English Language

Term 1 Common Test

By Joel Yap

Setting up casinos in Singapore could be harmful or beneficial to the country. Beneficial in the sense of the vast growth in economy or attracting huge number of tourists. However, on the other hand, there are cons of the building of casinos. They are – possibly making people bankrupt or making them homeless. Let us discuss the advantages and the disadvantages of the setting up of a casino.

Firstly, constructing a casino would be preferable, and beneficial in the aspect of an economy bloom. Due to this, there would be more people going to the banks for me and, eventually, taxes might increase so banks would earn a relatively huge sum of money in the long run. The machines in the casino would probably be programmed for the people to win based on a consistent interval. For example, the casino could choose one lucky winner out of, maybe, a possible ten hthousand. This explains how building a casino would be beneficial.

On the other hand, building a casino also has its disadvantages. One common problem faced around the world, faced by casinos is the higher bankruptcy rate. This is probably due to a large sum of people coming to the casino, and some people who repeatedly go to the casino. Some people, go there to such an extent that they would spend most hours in a day there. In addition, they might even quit their jobs to become a full time gambler. I worry for these people as, if they have poor financial planning skills, they might not consider how much they should save up and use up their money for their life after retirement. On the flipside, they just make use of these funds and just squander all their money on gambling and this would cause more people to get bankrupt, and maybe in the long run, even lose their homes.

On the other side of the coin, the casino being built could be an eye-opener for jobs. There could be jobs available in the casino such as bankers, security guards, and people to supervise others, and make sure they are doing their jobs well. Other jobs might include cleaners, and information counter attendants. In a recent newspaper article, it mentioned that over 20000 jobs will be available at the IR, Integrated Resort. With a growing number of an unemployed population, this could really be what the government is looking for.

Although the advantages mentioned might seem quite substantial for the government to allow the implementation of the idea of setting up of a casino, there is always the other side of the coin. People might be homeless because they spend too much time at the casinos and so they abandon their families, spend less time with their spouse and children. This might actually lead to the spouse leaving or divorcing the husband or wife. They might think why they decided to marry such an irresponsible person who is addicted to gambling and leave them in the lurch, relying on only themselves to feed and raise the children, to provide for the family but here they are just taking the money away to gamble the money. This might lead to high growth of single-mothers, and also, children who miss their parents. Children who hardly see their parents and not know how he looks like but hear stories about how negligent he had been.

From a different perspective, having a casino will also be a growth for tourism. People from different parts of the world, including the rich tycoons from China, flying over to Singapore to gamble. Imagine how much the government would gain out of this. Also, if these tycoons find out how great the casinos, they might just emigrate to Singapore and thus Singapore would be attracting foreign talents from all over the world to lead and serve the country, so that it might soar on wings like eagles and not be weary. However, they will soar to greater heights and this would cause the economy to flourish.

In addition, the government has also chosen to request people who enter the casino to pay an entrance of a certain amount of money. This would prevent people from going in if they did not have a lot of money, and I feel this is a good idea. I have read something else in the newspapers – consent forms to be singed by family members to stop or disallow their family members from even entering the casino. This is done, with a good intention, to prevent high numbers of homeless people, and a lower divorce rate. However, people – in order to gamble – might embezzle money from banks or from their companies to work in. Thus, this in turn, might cause a growth in theft and crime rate – people will do anything to get what they want. Overall, I feel having this idea of a casino is advisable, nevertheless the government could think of other methods to take care of its citizens and to make Singapore a safer place to live in.