JAMAICA'S tourism players have shot down suggestions that the introduction of casino gaming will prompt a further increase in crime on the island.

"Casino is an experience that has its own niche and a very powerful niche in terms of the ability to spend," said tourism minister Ed Bartlett. "There can be no concern regarding that (crime) because the tourism communities, by and large, the resort centres, by and large, are not attractive to criminality."

The fact that crimes against tourists were negligible was an encouraging factor for supporters of the Government's decision.

"The incidents that you have, have been around the hinterland of the resort centres," added Bartlett. "I think we have to debunk that myth that casinos attract criminal elements. All of Fort Lauderdale where the Indians have the Hard Rock Café (Hotel and casino), all you have there is wealth and opulence."

Wayne Cummings, president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA) that represents the tourism sector, agreed with Bartlett.

He said that it was unfair, at this stage, to cast aspersions on casino gaming.

"I don't believe we should draw those associations just by virtue of the announcement of casinos," said Cummings. "Casinos operate in a regulated environment as an attraction, as we have many other attractions across the island. They are actually the safest places for tourists to visit at this time.

"I don't expect it to be any different here in Jamaica. And I think the notion that casinos bring crime is something that is 50 years old. The wild, wild west mafia thing we have envisioned as in the days of old are things that are long gone. Casinos are now run, for the most part, by reputable companies with proper due diligence done and with proper government regulations, etc."

However, a 2006 article appearing in The Washington Post sites research undertaken by University of Georgia economist David B Mustard and Earl L Grinols, of Baylor University, which contradicts Bartlett's and Cummings' views.
The article, entitled 'Casinos and Crime: The Luck Runs Out', analysed crime data from 3,165 US counties between 1977 and 1996, and looked at local crime rates before and after casinos opened.

"They found that crime didn't budge when a casino began operating - at least at first. Crime began to rise after the first year, slowly at first and then more quickly, until it had far surpassed what it would have been if the casino had never opened," said the article, penned by Richard Morin. "By the fifth year of operation, robberies were up 136 per cent; aggravated assaults, 91 per cent; auto theft, 78 per cent; burglary, 50 per cent; larceny, 38 per cent; and rape, 21 per cent. Controlling for other factors, 8.6 per cent of property crimes and 12.6 per cent of violent crimes were attributed to casinos."

Bartlett maintained, however, that with the thousands of jobs to be created by the introduction of casinos, people will have a vested interest in staving off crime.

"What we are trying to do is to cut criminality by providing jobs," he said. "When people are employed they have a reason to protect their jobs and their future, and therefore will guard against criminality because they stand to lose much more by criminal activity."

But the Morin article noted that the research challenged the view that the creation of jobs was a deterrent to crime associated with casinos.

"Mustard said the positive effects of casinos are fleeting - payrolls and tax collections quickly plateau, and municipalities don't keep adding cops after the first wave of casino tax revenue rolls in," the article said. "What's more, Mustard said, crime rates didn't rise in neighbouring counties, while they soared in casino counties - evidence that casinos create crime locally and don't merely attract it from somewhere else."

The debate over casino gaming in Jamaica again rose to prominence last month following Prime Minister Bruce Golding's budget speech in which he announced that his administration would be forging ahead with plans to implement casino gaming as part of Jamaica's range of attractions.

Meanwhile, the tourism ministry and the JHTA have indicated an intention to ensure they had all their bases covered.
"We were very clear that we wanted it, lobbied for it ,but that we will be insistent that we take all the necessary precautions - security and regulations, etc - to ensure we (as a country) are never called in to question as to how it is operated," said Cummings.

Bartlett, meanwhile, said it was important for people to recognise that the Jamaican casinos would not be run the way casinos elsewhere were operated. Specifically, he said they would form part of the tourism product.

"We are not talking about stand-alone casinos. What you will see is 1,000-room hotels or more with water parks and cabarets and shopping," he explained. "That is what you will see. It is an opportunity, I think, that Jamaica must recognise and stop being blurred in the vision of the casino that is going to be no more than 15 to 20 per cent of the total experience of the product.

"It is time for us to get out of the rut of a historical perspective that categorises casinos in the days of the 1950s. In fact, if one should continue to judge that product by its historical antecedent, there is little that we would be doing in Jamaica or anywhere else," he said.

His argument would seem to be supported by the findings of a second US study, authored by Grant Stitt and published in 2000, which was sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, US Department of Justice.

That study - entitled 'Effects of Casino Gambling on Crime and Quality of Life in New Casino Jurisdictions' - concluded, essentially, that there were a multiplicity of variables that needed to be taken into consideration when considering the impacts of casino gaming on communities.

"The findings reported were two-fold: findings relating to official crime statistics to the advent of casinos, and findings relating to casino presence to community perceptions and quality of life issues including problem gambling, suicide, and divorce, bankruptcy, social capital, and community satisfaction," noted the abstract of the final report of the study, which looked at the impact of casino gambling in eight new casino jurisdictions.

"The findings suggest that when casinos are introduced to a community the impact varies by community. In three communities, there were many more crimes that significantly decreased than increased," said the study.

It noted further that: "Since most of the communities had casinos for less than 10 years, the positive and negative impact may well change, given a greater duration within the communities. The effects of casinos in a community were seen as quite varied, depending on a multitude of variables beyond the scope of this research."

It concluded, saying: "It was determined that the simple analyses and broad generalisations of this research are not sufficient to understand the complexity of what happens in communities when legalised casino gambling is introduced."
Meanwhile, Bartlett has suggested that Jamaicans should be prepared to give casino gaming the benefit of the doubt.

"It is huge investment that we are talking about and where gaming is but a fraction of the activities there," he said. "You will not see it around town as you see the other gaming lounges around town. It is a strategic engagement of an experience that has high-end value."

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