Sir,
Elias Hazou writing in your newspaper 16 October under the title ‘Red tape’ quoted former Commerce Minister’s Nicos Rolandis ideas about casinos.
Mr Rolandis cannot understand the reasoning that casinos create social problems. I will refer him to a most illuminating reporting by Katia Diogenous published in your paper on August 8, 2004, under the title ‘How I lost a husband to gambling’. Roulla Panayiotou and Nicki Michael had the courage to go public and describe how casino gambling by their husbands brought loss of home, financial problems, unhappiness and divorce.
Mr Rolandis is apparently unaware that research in many countries where casinos operate proves that between 2 and 2.5 per cent of the population become pathological gamblers. What does this mean for Cyprus in terms of the financial cost? There are 616,700 persons aged 12 and over. This means 12,334 compulsive gamblers, but let us estimate the figure at 2 per cent.
According to the Centre for the Study of Human Behaviour, an Athens-based NGO, the cost of treatment is £9,000 per person. Multiply this by the number of addicted and you arrive at the staggering cost of £111,006,000 for the treatment expenses. Even if you were to limit the treatment to counselling only with say a cost of £4,000, then you have £49,336,000. This is a cost the national economy bears. Next you have the other so called “hidden expenses”, such as the engagement of the police, the judiciary and the administrative costs of handling the crime resulting from the behaviour of compulsive gamblers. Here are some of the cases of crimes recorded during the last 12 months involving persons connected with gambling.
In October 2004, two bombing attacks. On December 22, 2004, a murder. On January 31, 2005, an attempted murder. In April 2005, a series of thefts by a pathological gambler. On, July 4, 2005, a murder.
Then there is the suffering of the families, the wives and children of the pathological gamblers, for which Mr Rolandis says he cannot understand the reasoning. I ask him to talk to either the pathological gambler or his family.
There is another statement by the ‘veteran politician’ which he has not supported. He says casinos will bring £40 to £50 million annually to the government. I ask him to study the receipts of a casino operating in a country with the population of Cyprus and he will be surprised to learn what their turnover is. I submit that the figures he quoted are completely out of place.
Finally I challenge Mr Rolandis to give cases of countries whose tourism has benefited from casinos with facts and figures. That is how many tourists and what are the receipts from tourists. Personally I visited several casinos in Greece and wrote articles in the press highlighting the lack of tourists’ attendance. Let him speak to government officials in Greece to discover the fallacy that casinos help tourism.
Nicos Rossos, Limassol
