Impact of casinos in Singapore

Casinos in Singapore, after hearing that questions about Singapore's ability to have 2 casinos should fill your mind. One example would be "Does Singapore have enough space?" Another would be "I thought Singapore was a sort of conservative country, since when did the government changed their mindsets?" However, many were proven wrong. Singapore will have 2 casinos as part of the two Integrated Resorts(IR). Casinos have both pros and cons in society.

The pros of having casinos is that it helps to contribute to Singapore's economy and tourism. Once we have a casino in Singapore, more tourists from different countries (including our neighbouring country Malaysia) would flock to Singapore to gamble. This would contribute to our country's tourism as the number of tourists would increase as time goes by. This can also help to contribute to Singapore's economy as more people would pay huge amount of money to gamble. That also includes locals. People do not just bring only about 200 dollars to gamble. They bring about 1000 dollars or more. Tourists and gamblers spend lots of money to gamble. These bring good economic impacts to Singapore.

The cons of having casinos in Singapore is the social impacts it results in. By building casinos in Singapore, the number of obsessive gamblers would increase. More families would be broken too. The entrance fee of 100 dollars was imposed to discourage people from entering the casino, however, I feel that it does not work for all people. Firstly, as I have said, they bring a huge amount of money to gamble so 100 dollars would be seen as nothing. It would only be seen as obstacle when these gamblers are desperate, short of cash. Here a problem would come. They would start borrowing from loan sharks and the debt starts accumulating. This would affect their families and might resulting in it being broken. Although Singapore government does put up advertisements for people to seek professional help, how many would even bother to pick up the phone to dial the number? One effective solution would be the ban that families can apply for their family member. This can help to prevent these people from gambling and creating more problems.

In conclusion, I feel that gambling can be treated as a recreational activity but not excessively. I am sure the government wants the casino to have a positive impact on the country instead of a negative one. Nobody wants their country to be known for having a great number of excessive gamblers because of a wrong decision.