Evangelical Alliance Condemns Government's 'Super-Casino' Expansion

The Evangelical Alliance has condemned the Government's announcements on the expansion of the Casino industry in the UK.

|PIC1|Manchester has been chosen as the location of Britain's first Las Vegas-style super-casino, and has been granted a full licence for development to go ahead.

The licence will allow Manchester to build a venue for up to 1,250 unlimited-jackpot gaming machines. Meanwhile, licences for "large" casinos were granted to Great Yarmouth, Hull, Leeds, Middlesbrough, Milton Keynes, Newham, Solihull and Southampton.

The Casino Advisory Panel also granted licences for "small" casinos to Bath and North East Somerset, Dumfries and Galloway, East Lindsey, Luton, Scarborough, Swansea, Torbay and Wolverhampton.

The Evangelical Alliance has expressed grave concerns about the choice of Manchester for the proposed super-casino, as the area indicated is "deprived", and the Alliance is on record as saying that Manchester is not well enough equipped to deal with the social impacts of problem gambling.

The Alliance does not believe that casinos regenerate local areas. A statement released by the EA tells: "Claims of job generation and economic improvement are misleading. International research does not demonstrate that casinos always revolutionise tourism and reverse decline.

"Over time, casino jobs (mostly low paid and often part-time) merely displace existing jobs from smaller local businesses. Casino complexes offer everything very cheaply, under one roof, so existing businesses can't compete."

Also telling that casino gambling will not consist of glamorous James Bond style gaming tables, the EA has said that "instead, the vast majority of floor space will be dedicated to row upon row of highly addictive high stakes slot machines - the 'crack cocaine' of gambling addiction. As the British Medical Association has said, these new style 'category A' slot machines with unlimited stakes and prizes contain all the features most likely to increase problem gambling in the UK."

Highlighting that it's accepted that people on low incomes spend proportionately more of their income on gambling, the EA say that "it's also been shown that people are more likely to develop a gambling problem if they live near a casino."

The Parliamentary Officer for the Evangelical Alliance, Gareth Wallace, said: "There is huge pressure from the industry for the Government to relax the rule on building only one super casino. They claim we need more casinos to measure social impact!

"The Evangelical Alliance points out that there are going to be eight large and eight small as well as the huge proliferation in casinos that were allowed to slip in under the old rules. At least 90 new casinos licences have been issued on the Government's watch. There were around 100 casinos in the UK when Labour came to power. This effective doubling of casino numbers since 1997 is surely quite enough to measure social impact!"

Warning about the problematic impact the new measures might have, the EA said, "The cumulative effect of the Government's measures to liberalise casinos, legalise gambling advertising combined with the explosion in online gambling will be to drastically increase the availability and attractiveness of gambling.

"The Evangelical Alliance agrees with Professor Mark Griffiths of Nottingham Trent University who has stated that gambling advertising should have heath warnings and the lottery proves that advertising stimulates demand."

A YouGov Poll for the Daily Telegraph demonstrated that a majority of the UK public believed the spread of casinos is a bad idea because it would lead to a rise in problem gambling.