Originally posted by elindra:
This only proves that, even with no casino, people will still kill themselves from their debts overseas.
Honestly, if you don't want to gamble, you won't. It is only those compulsive gamblers who do. Studied in Australia with the Casino at the doorstep. For my friends who don't gamble, we only stepped in to look without even playing any games for the time we were there. For those we knew who always gambled in Singapore. They gambled their allowances away.
Anyway as said, there are already casinos in the cruise ships and the hard core gamblers don't even need to pay to get on the ships.
Ultimately it is a person's own choice and their own responsibilty with their own money and life. If they want to gamble their lives away, it is their own choice. We cannot expect the government to be the guardian all the time because some people have no self-control.
If a casino is built in Singapore, gambling will be made even more accessible to Singaporeans than when having the existing gambling ships and neighboring countries.
Maybe we can look at it like this... There's a small town called Beezeebee, and all it has are small eateries offering meals at economical prices. In the neighboring city Neighhhh, there are all sorts of posh restaurants which a minority of the people of Beezeebee visit occasionally. But because it's located away from the town the people of Beezeebee call home and takes a bit more travelling to than usual, it has never been the general culture of the Beezeebees to splurge on their meals.
One day, a wealthy man decides to open one posh restaurant in the town of Beezeebee. Those who were once lazy to travel to the city Neighhhh grew curious about the posh restaurant and decided to patronize it since it was just at home anyway. And soon more and more people start to want to visit expensive restaurants.
What I'm trying to say is, building a casino here will mean introducing gambling to more Singaporeans albeit the strict regulations that may be imposed.
We cannot prevent the problem of having compulsive gamblers, but we should do what we can to minimize it.
Am I making sense?
