Currently, Bermuda's gambling industry is restricted to small operators engaging in just about every gambling activity in existence. Hence, the issue is not about whether or not gambling should be legalised but whether it should be conducted on a scale sufficiently well organised to enable Government to enlarge its tax base and to provide an exciting entertainment option for tourists. In other words, the argument goes, Bermuda needs a casino.

In today's Bermuda, residents are engaged in just about every gambling activity you might find in a typical casino and much of it is legal. However, very little of this activity is taxed and even less of it is available for the enjoyment of visitors. Off track betting is legal and taxed as are the football pools. Bingo for cash is permitted as is Crown and Anchor but both seem to be restricted to Working Men's Clubs and neither activity is taxed. The existence of slot machines that pay off in cash is legal until next June but the returns from the 300 or so machines said to be in existence are not taxed and in most cases are accessible to visitors only incidentally.

Than there are the card and dice games. These are currently conducted in private homes and private clubs. However, none of this activity is taxed and very little is available for tourists.

There is a growing noise for the creation of a Casino in order to organise this scattered, partially legal gambling activity in order to boost government's sagging revenues and to revive the tourist trade. Of course, there are certain social values at stake but the din for completely legalising and expanding this gambling activity clearly overrides a 'snoozing' morality.

I do not accept the argument that a Casino is necessary in order to broaden the tax base. There is plenty of economic activity in Bermuda which, if judiciously taxed, could achieve that goal. At the moment, in our little tax haven, the more you earn, the smaller the proportion of your income is taken by government. This is known as regressive taxation and is frowned upon in every country that is a true democracy.

The closest that Bermuda has come to having a neutral tax (the proportion of tax taken out of income is constant) was the hospital levy which has been incorporated into the payroll tax. Still, the payroll tax is only applied to wage and salary income below a threshold of around $250,000. However, there is no such relief for those at the low end of the income scale. Bermuda could increase their tax revenues sufficiently to meet current demands simply by reducing the regressive aspect of the payroll taxes now in use.

The advocates for a Casino believe that the complete legalisation of gambling would revive the tourist industry. I believe that one needs to ask, why do some politicians believe that the tourist industry needs to be revived in the first instance? Apart from some hardship cases, Bermuda does not have an unemployment problem? The hotel and restaurant industry, hardly an industry known for a dependence on highly skilled labour, imports a major part of its workforce.

Clearly, Bermuda does not now or at any time in the recent past have difficulty in putting its people to work. Our dependence on a foreign workforce is related only in part to the need for skilled labour. It is rather more related to the need for sufficient workers to offset the very slow growth of the Bermudian workforce in the face of continuing expansion in the island's offshore business activity.

What Bermuda requires to stabilise its sagging tourism industry is a determination to provide first class service to those Americans who appreciate what we have to offer. The decline in tourism has the beneficial result that it provides potential for improving the profitability of the existing hotels, thereby enabling them to provide the quality of service that a more demanding visitor expects and gets elsewhere.

Will the introduction of a casino or casinos as a tourist attraction improve tourist expenditure? The introduction of casinos will certainly make Bermuda more attractive to people who like to gamble. It will make Bermuda less attractive to those who do not. Whether or not the trade-off will result in improved tourist expenditure has not been established. However, some appreciation of the extent to which casinos can increase tourist expenditure can be obtained from a survey of our visitors.

The Monitor group, who examined the tourism industry for several years, did not recommend gambling as an option to halt the decline in the annual visitor count. They recommended that Bermuda find out what visitors want that Bermuda is uniquely equipped to supply. That certainly is not gambling. Any island can put up a casino and the more backward the island, the more profitable the casino.

However, not any island can reproduce our overall social and economic development that Bermuda's union, business and political leaders have created carefully and thoughtfully over several decades. It is this development, it is associated infrastructure and its very sophisticated population that gives Bermuda its uniqueness and desirability as a financial centre and tourist destination. The insertion of gambling as a major product in this mix would detract from what we have achieved.

I am not alone in this view. The hotels that remain in Bermuda are not clamouring for the privilege of having a Casino. Their managers are the experts in the field of tourism in all aspects but I am not aware that any of them are making noises about having a casino as part of their offerings to tourists.

Could it be that they are more concerned with the creation of an industry geared to exploit Bermuda's uniqueness rather than making it just another of the legalised gambling venues that are growing like weeds throughout the Western Hemisphere?

We are all aware that the introduction of casinos carries with it some awesome social issues. We claim that we are concerned with drug abuse and its association with increasing crime. The crime is said to arise as a result of persons trying to get money to buy drugs. We may presume that casinos will provide another drain on the drug user's finances and an added incentive to engage in crime.

Than there is the black empowerment argument. If casinos are allowed to be set up in Bermuda, they will require an infusion of skills that are certainly not available locally. Since we already import labour to supplement our workforce, we will not even have Bermudians to train to staff the industry, black or otherwise. Where will we get the dealers, the maintenance equipment persons and the supervisory management? We will have to import them. And what of the profits that some black Bermudian businesses are now enjoying with the existing slot machines? Will this profitable activity continue after legalisation and creation of Casinos? Remember what happened to black hotels and restaurants after the integration of the major hotels?

In closing, I am glad that the PLP government has opened up this whole question of legalisation of gambling for public debate. It is a deeply complex issue that Bermudians need to review carefully. Once the genie of gambling is out of the bottle it can not be put back in.

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