I’ve just about had enough of people rubbishing a place they know only through the blurred images of their prejudice. All they can talk about is a place they relate to only through the sensationalized lurid print of the tabloids, and of Hollywood ‘B’ movies where gangs of criminals heist the joint.

For Pete’s sake, we are in the 21st Century. The heist movies with seedy joints died away like prohibition. No one argues the fact that organized crime money set up the first casinos and for a number of years controlled the gambling industry in Nevada. The fact is that in less than half a century the gaming industry in America has become highly regulated, and now has far more checks, balances and controls than any other industry in the world. Indeed, most gaming jurisdictions are controlled similarly throughout the globe.

Just like in any other field of business, at the beginning the entrepreneurs will get away with murder, quite literally, until the law of the land puts its house in order. In the 18th century Britain was involved in opium trafficking in China, running the slave trade and generally behaving like barbarians in their dominions overseas, and exporting their criminals to the Antipodes! Right now, the population has been encouraged to borrow itself into a frenzy and not one do-gooder has deigned to form a society for compulsive borrowers or to stem the rampant consumerism.

Yesterday, a comment on the country’s current gaming law position by Mexico’s Minister of Tourism, Señor Rodolfo Elizondo Torres, was quoted by a national daily after businessmen declared their opposition to the project thinking, like some people in Britain, that casinos could convert the country into another Las Vegas: “ I am not lobbying for the approval of the gaming law in the country. If casinos are authorized in Mexico, they will not turn the country into another Las Vegas. We will just be offering more choice to our visitors, which is very different from turning the country into another Las Vegas.”

Do the people who mention Las Vegas in the same breath as every conceivable vice and crime imaginable know that Greater Las Vegas has other industries independent from gambling? That not everyone leads a poor and dejected life consumed by gambling or some such related activity, as was stated in Victoria Cohen’s article published over the weekend? I wonder if Ms Cohen has visited Henderson or Summerlyn or any of the surrounding districts of Greater Las Vegas over the weekends to see for herself how families take their kids to play school sports in glorious sunshine.

I wonder if those who rubbish Las Vegas have ever taken part in any of the ethnic cultural festivities that take place week in, week out, all over Las Vegas. The Renaissance Festival, that takes place during the second week in October over 3 days, is enough to make any community in the world envy the colourful fancy dressing, music and food, with practically no booze, at a delightful festival that is attended by thousands. Alternatively, the Latin Columbus day fiesta, where the Latin community lets down its hair, is an American celebration with salsa music, food, and ice-cold beer, but no hooliganism.

Las Vegas is just another metropolis in the world that happens to have been founded on an industry that also had its dark origins, just like banking, insurance, mining, and the whole industrial revolution that was built on the misery of the people it employed and exploited in days gone by. I expect what the critics mean to rubbish is the Las Vegas Boulevard, commonly known as ‘The Strip’, which is a gambling centre par excellence.

Maybe they do not want any British community in Blackpool, Margate, Glasgow or any other city, to resemble The Strip where The Bellagio has an hourly show on the immense water feature between the property and the famous thoroughfare, with 100 ft colourful fountains dancing in the night to music made for angels, and where the Treasure Island property has a simulated battle between pirates and the British Navy ship that literally sails from around the corner of the property and the son et lumiere effect is only out-staged by the sinking of the British vessel and the gallant last act of its captain.

Perhaps the huge roaring volcano that erupts every so often, spewing smoke and lava in incandescent colours into the water that surrounds the island outside the famous Mirage, is just too much for Great Britain to fathom, or perhaps going into the immense hotel lobby that backs into a giant fish tank wall with wonderful tropical sea life is over the top for the British. The wonders of Las Vegas cannot be reproduced everywhere - a sampling here and there, maybe. Is that too bad?

The gaming industry, which mostly self-regulates because it makes business sense and has been the initiator of responsible gaming, will not replicate Las Vegas everywhere because it is impossible. The Mexicans understand this, as do the people from Singapore (article October 25). There is probably more hardship and broken lives in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Glasgow and Blackpool than in Las Vegas.

As far as problem gambling is concerned, like problem credit card debt, it could be controlled with intelligent legislation. One thing is for sure; casinos are not in the business of encouraging problem gambling, or any other problem for that matter. As far as Las Vegas goes, please get to know it before laying the sins of the world on this business and family community that adds a little sparkle to that world, and doesn’t wish to impose itself on anyone.

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