Africa’s heavyweight leisure company Sun International is planning to burst onto the Scottish gaming scene with a £150M gaming paradise.

Sun International boasts a gaming pedigree that began in 1977 and includes 23 hotels and 17 casinos, including the prestigious Sun City. Their expansion plans, however, are not limited to Scotland. In the UK they would form a gaming group with casino complexes at several sites, on the lines of ones they have in South Africa. In South Africa they have new projects in the Cape, Umhlanga and Bloemfontein and are keeping an eye on Mozambique where it's the country's lack of infrastructure that is holding them back. A casino complex with hotel, spa and conference centre in oil rich Luanda, Angola is already more than a twinkle in their eye.

Their new planned Scottish investment comes from the inevitable deregulation of Britain’s archaic gaming law that they and other gaming leviathans have been looking forward to. Some of the proposed law changes will be the scrapping of the 24 hour rule, which means that all new members currently have to wait 24 hours before they can play, and the removal of the strict advertising limitations which presently shackle British gaming operators, and will move the British gaming industry into the high profile status enjoyed by worldwide operators. The bill is likely to be enacted in late 2005.

Encouraged by the relaxation in the government’s position towards bookmakers, casino owners are hoping for similar provisions, which would attract around £3 billion in inward investment to the UK as a result.

It has been reported that Sun International plans to build a first class gaming destination in Scotland, probably near Edinburgh or Glasgow, complete with restaurants, fast-food outlets and bars. This project would, at its completion, guarantee around 1500 new jobs and the company is currently in talks with Scottish Enterprise on a possible location.

Unfortunately not everyone is looking forward to the increase in jobs and prosperity, In a report Paul Waterson, Chief Executive of the Scottish Licensed Trade Association, links casinos with alcohol and the chronic Scottish problem drinking. In making this incredibly feeble argument against casinos there is a complete disregard for the fact that drunken clients would be banned, and ignoring that in a casino entertainment complex there are better things to do than get drunk.

Like nobody in Scotland could get a drink if they wanted to, Paul!

© Copyright 2004 CasinoCompendium



>>> return to archives
>>> return to frontpage