Thursday, June 28, 2018
Casinos in Goa will continue to remain equally popular with passage of time owing to the boom in Indian middle class tourism and also the attractive economic footprint of the glamorous industry as per one of the first published studies on the industry in this coastal state.
The study indicates that efforts are necessary to implement certain sustainable strategies and also counteract bad effects of casino gambling.
This research paper was published by Dr. Alfonso Botelho who is an associate professor of Sociology at the Rosary College of Commerce and Arts in South Goa in the latest edition of the International Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Systems.
They have also recommended establishing an authority to regulate casinos on the lines of Las Vegas’s Nevada Gaming Commission (NGC), so as to rein in “potential negative externalities”.
The study states Casinos have taken strong roots in Goa and clearing the ever-growing forest of casinos is becoming more and more difficult as years roll by. The offshore casinos have almost fused with the landscape of Panaji making it almost next to impossible to visualise Panaji and the river Mandovi sans the casinos.
The research paper also marks a comparison between the casino industry and its socio-economic impact on casino havens like Las Vegas, Singapore, Macau, Monte Carlo, etc., in an attempt to put the casino industry in context vis-a-vis Goa, where the first casino gambling operation began in 1992.
The study also portrays how the Goa government has facilitated the expansion of various casinos in Goa. Casinos have been promoted in tourism areas due to their assumed capability of being the largest employers and their potential to attract a huge number of tourists who otherwise might not have considered visiting the said destination.
The study also advocates banning entry of locals or increasing the entry fees for entry to casinos, a practice followed in Nepal and in South Korea.
