The news that the licensing of eight large and eight small casinos in the UK is likely to now go ahead has brought the usual cacophony of noise from the anti-gambling lobby, religious groups and some media sources. The Daily Mail is now calling the large casinos, offering £4000 jackpots by up to 150 gaming machines, ‘a wave of huge regional casinos.’ The newspaper also refers to them as ‘Vegas-style palaces.’

The ‘experts’ are, as usual, trotted out to proclaim social devastation and an explosion in gambling addiction. The pilot scheme for an actual super casino with up to 1,250 gaming machines, is now gathering dust on a shelf somewhere in Whitehall and will not see the light of day again anytime in the foreseeable future, despite large amounts of money having been spent by some councils in a bid to secure the investment and jobs such a development would bring to their region.

All sixteen councils awarded one of the new casino licences by the Casino Advisory Panel have already confirmed to government that they wish to proceed. The large casinos will be in Leeds, Hull, Middlesbrough, Southampton, Solihull, Great Yarmouth, Milton Keynes and Newham. The eight small casinos, with 80 slot machines, will be in Skegness, Bath, Luton, Stranraer, Scarborough, Swansea, Torbay and Wolverhampton. Casinos licensed under the 1968 gaming law are limited to 20 gaming machines, also with maximum £4,000 jackpots.

With operators already paying unexpectedly high gaming tax, introduced in last year’s budget, the casino industry in Britain is far from being an investor’s dream. Ladbrokes has declared itself as no longer interested in pursuing casino licences; Harrah’s Entertainment offered to swap its newly acquired London Clubs International UK casinos for a 28% stake in Rank, which has recently put on hold any plans for major projects.

The UK’s casino scene may not attract any of the big international operators once courting councils the length and breadth of Britain. The economic climate has changed, funding is not as simple as it was, tax levels are above those anticipated. All in all, the UK’s sixteen casinos licensed under the new Gambling Act 2005 are unlikely to bear any resemblance to a Vegas-style palace or could be classified as huge. (E-01.23.08)

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