Casino in Manchester? They're welcome to it

The most depressing place I have been in my life was a casino in Portugal. Atmosphere like a morgue, groups of grim-faced people getting fleeced while playing boring games. So the big surprise for me is not the fact that Manchester has been awarded the right to open a super-casino, but the fact that it wants to do so. The city has made a remarkable turnaround since the IRA bombing, and it's hard to see why it would want to take on the problems that a super-casino will inevitably bring.

The Daily Mail (you don't find me typing those words very often) reported that the casino operator will be a "notorious" and "vulgar" South African. This being the Mail, that could mean Nelson Mandela, but no, it's some entrepreneur who has previous (casino experience) in Sun City and New Jersey. For all I know, this gent is as pure as the driven snow, and both the Government and Manchester itself are pledged to run a clean operation. The trouble is, where casinos go, crime tends to follow. (For an enjoyably chilling history of the role of assorted mobs and heavies in the development of Las Vegas, I strongly recommend "The Money and the Power" by Sally Denton and Roger Morris).

You'd think that an even bigger problem, from the viewpoint of a supposedly Labour government, would be the impact that the Manchester super-casino and all its little clones across the UK will have on the growing number of problem gamblers. The betting gene seems to be exceptionally strong in this country, as the boom in on-line poker, and more recently the appalling call-in quiz shows, clearly demonstrate. Yet the Government seems to have no qualms about feeding the frenzy, as long as there are taxes to be collected. It seems to think that a "destination" casino will mainly fleece -- sorry, attract -- high rollers. Maybe it will, but you don't have to spend much time in Vegas or Atlantic City to realise that most of the punters don't fall into that category. It's an old saw that lotteries are a tax on ignorance, but is that really the way the government should look to close its funding gap?

Gordon Brown has already let it be known that if he has his way, Manchester's will be not only the first but the only supercasino. I don't agree with the Presbyterian miseryguts about much, but on this issue, I think he's definitely right.