WESTERN BUREAU – Deputy managing director of Jamaica Money Market Brokers Limited Keith Duncan has added his voice to the call for government to give the nod to casino gaming.

“I’d like to urge Prime Minister P J Patterson and the government to make the right decision with regards to the issue of allowing casino gambling in Jamaica,” he said.

Duncan was delivering the main address during the Jamaica Computer Association’s Lifetime Achievement Awards Ceremony in Montego Bay Saturday night. “Gone are the days when casinos were a shady business run by the Mafia. It’s now a properly regulated trillion-dollar global business.”

His call comes on the heels of recent urgings by Patterson point man Kingsley Thomas for the government to make up its mind about the controversial issue.

According to Duncan, the Bahamian economy had been transformed after the introduction of casinos.

“In the Bahamas, it has completely changed the economic landscape with the Atlantis Resort and Casino on its Paradise Island,” he said. “This over 2,300-room ocean-themed resort is the largest casino in the Caribbean. (It has) a seven-acre lagoon, the world’s largest open aquarium and hotels built around a 34-acre mini ocean where you can see over 50,000 species of fish and sharks as you walk through the corridors.”

The property, he said, was set for even further expansion and growth.

An additional US$600 million, Duncan said, would be pumped into Paradise Island, which is expected to funnel more than US$4 billion into the Bahamian economy, provide 3,000 jobs and attract four million visitors a year over the next few years.

“The Bahamas Islands pull four million visitors annually, while we struggle to top a million,” Duncan said.

The introduction of casino gaming in Jamaica, he argued, would “significantly enhance our tourism product and spark an investment explosion the likes of which we have never seen”.

Earlier this year, the government ordered the Betting,

Gaming and Lotteries Commission (BGLC) to undertake a study of casino gaming and what forms it could take here. A private sector group, which supports casino gaming, also conducted its own study.

Neither report has been made public and there has been no serious and analytical debate on the issue, while proposals for casino-based developments have languished.