Good time with strings attached

Even in Goa, the casino bobs in uneasy waters. In his home at Betalbatim Church Square, Minister for Tourism Francisco Xavier Pacheco waves fingers thick with gold rings to say that more applications for live gaming casinos have arrived from Malaysia, Singapore and Austria.

8216;8216;I don8217;t go to these casinos, but we welcome foreign offers. You gotta understand8230;8217;8217; he says repeatedly, adjusting a white bandana round his head, three gold chains in his neck.

8216;8216;On shore, only automated slot machines are permitted. If you gamble with a machine and just luck, it8217;s like somebody cutting your throat. Why should we stop anyone from gambling, don8217;t they do it in personal life? We cannot control somebody8217;s money.8217;8217;

But Goa8217;s Chief Minister Manohar Parriker definitely does not agree. 8216;8216;No, not at all. Applications may have arrived but Goa cannot take too many of these things,8217;8217; Parriker told The Sunday Express.

This is the view aired, despite the Rs 50 lakh annual licence fee and the Rs 20,000-30,000 per slot machine per year paid up by Casino Goa to the Goa government.

Tourism officials say that Goa has churned out an estimated an impressive constant of Rs 1,500 crore annually in foreign exchange for the last two years. But Parriker repeatedly explains that the issue is more 8216;8216;delicate and complicated8217;8217; than just tourism revenue.

8216;8216;We can consider these applications, and the locations they have proposed, but it8217;s a slightly sensitive issue. Nobody in India knows what an actual live casino is.8217;8217;

Yet, Minister Pacheco, known to locals and on his visiting card as Mikky, shares rather astonishing hopes in an interview with The Sunday Express.

8216;8216;When foreigners spend, say, 20,000-50,000, why should we give them prize money in rupees? Let them take home dollars, since they have all the official documents,8217;8217; he says.

Casino Goa secured its gaming licence granted to Ramada Hotels India, in December 1999. When Goa, Daman and Diu were a union territory, gambling in public was prohibited.

As tourism and luxury hotels just kept bloating, the government permitted electronic slot machines at five-star hotels, by an amendment to the Goa Public Gambling Act 1976.

In 1996, further amendments to the Act led to permission for gaming tables and gaming aboard offshore vessels.

This permission was actually implemented from December 1999, only for Casino Goa. 8216;8216;The five-year licence comes up for renewal in December 2004,8217;8217; says Narinder Punj, director-operations of Casino Goa.

The licence, though, does not spell the end to legal complications.

Pacheco, who is also captain of ports, has noticed that the Caravela is just a minute8217;s ferry ride away. 8216;8216;By law, the vessel should be 7 km away from the coast. It8217;s obstructing traffic so I am planning to ask the director of tourism to send them a notice,8217;8217; he says, seriously.

But the casino does attempt to buffer the gambling 8216;8216;stigma8217;8217; with sunset cruises for family and children in the evenings.

8216;8216;We pursued the licence for nearly 10 years,8217;8217; says Poonam Bijlani, vice-president, sales and marketing, Advani Pleasure Cruise Company and Advani Hotels and Resorts India. 8216;8216;Nobody under 18 is permitted on board.8217;8217;

There8217;s another obvious reason the entry fee is deliberately steep. Says Bijlani, 8216;8216;The Goa government was keen on high entry costs. They don8217;t want the locals to get addicted to casino gambling.8217;8217;