'Casino social costs outweigh benefits'

By Dorothy Parker
Editor, Frontline Scotland

Glasgow is second in line in the tough bidding war for the government's new regional super-casino.

As the government deliberated the bids from the seven competing areas, Frontline Scotland decided to investigate if a super-casino would really help the city and Scotland.

The investigation found that casinos had failed to regenerate Detroit

Glasgow City Council claimed it would bring jobs and regenerate a deprived area of the city - whichever of their sites was chosen. What was the evidence for this?

We commissioned Hall Aitken, a company experienced in this field, to analyse the council's bid.

While they began their research we started doing our own digging and looked into the experiences of other areas with casinos. That, of course, led us to the USA.

Las Vegas was the first stop. It has built a very successful industry out of casinos.

But Glasgow would have only one super-casino. It wasn't going to become a Las Vegas overnight so the comparison was unfair.

While the casinos in Detroit had brought jobs, they had not produced all the regeneration hoped for Dorothy Parker

So we looked a little further. Was there a city more like Glasgow which had looked to casinos in order to try to regenerate the city? Yes - Detroit.

It had an industrial past like Glasgow and had brought in casinos to help in the late 1990s. The city now has three. So what effect were they having on employment, city regeneration, and problem gambling?

Reporter Samantha Poling found that the benefits for Detroit were not proven.

While the casinos had brought jobs, they had not produced all the regeneration hoped for, and there had been an increase in gambling addiction and personal bankruptcy.

'Social costs'

The Hall Aitken study echoed these findings.

Paul Buchanan, who wrote the report, said: "We think that the economic benefits that are shown in the Glasgow bid could well be outweighed by the negative social costs associated with this casino."

But the main problem we and Hall Aitken found was within the government's own model for the regional super-casino.

While Detroit had benefited from $800m from gambling taxes going straight back to city, Glasgow wouldn't get any of it - all the tax would go to the Treasury.

Despite this Glasgow City Council strongly defended its bid saying the super-casino would boost the economy in terms of a growth in visitors and bring major regeneration benefits to the city.

The decision is due in December.