The Casino Debate

An Integrated Resort, otherwise known as the IR, is finally coming to Singapore. However, most people have mixed feelings towards the IR. Being underage and unable to neither gain entry to the casino or even gamble, I will be posting merely as a bystander. 

Based off the current situation, I believe that the biggest disagreement that the public had, has already been removed. The issue was that the upcoming IRs would not allow entry to the Singaporeans. This seemed like a very unreasonable decision. Naturally, Singaporeans all over the country created a great hoo-ha over this. The decision later made to allow Singaporeans, was in fact a wise one. 

One thing that I noticed was that there were quite a lot of articles on how the structure of the IR was planned to fit the “feng shui”. Having some interest in such topics, I noticed how the building was centred on bringing in wealth, similar to the design of the Suntec City “Fountain of Wealth”. However, the very design sparked off some controversy. Gamblers believed that this meant trouble for them as they would lose money in the IR, “bringing wealth” to the IR literally. 

Most of the opposition believes that the opening of the IR would increase the number of gamble-holics in Singapore, greatly damaging the image of Singapore and also bring about many social problems. The number of underground loaning groups like “loan sharks” would increase exponentially. This not only affects the person addicted to gambling, but also everyone around him. The opening of an IR was even labelled to be a waste of resources, though the revenue gained would be astounding, but the problems that come with this package would be devastating. 

However, I personally believe that there is more than enough measure put in place. One prominent example would be the family decision act, whereby family members are allowed to “ban” their relative from entering the IR even before it sets up to remove potential gamble-holics. The government has also started a series of advertisements on how to prevent being addicted to gambling and even set up help-lines for gamble addicts. 

Having so many measures already in place, I believe that the IR issue has been given much thought and that the benefits would outweigh all the potential problems.