Why does Ireland have no centralised gambling district?

Atlantic Dawn

With massive gains from tax to the country why don't we have a single dedicated area of sin to service people who want to gamble? A sort of Centre Parks with all sorts allowed? For me it's like someone denying the opening of a massive gold mine in their field because they don't like the shade of the colour gold against the red on their Massey F.

Plumbthedepths

Drink less and cop on.

Eric Cartman

Do you see the hellholes ordinary public spaces become, can you imagine the filth a ‘centralised area of sin’ would become

Achebe

We'll have our own Las Vegas, in the hills of Donegal.

tdf7187

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

With massive gains from tax to the country why don't we have a single dedicated area of sin to service people who want to gamble? A sort of Centre Parks with all sorts allowed? For me it's like someone denying the opening of a massive gold mine in their field because they don't like the shade of the colour gold against the red on their Massey F.

Innate conservatism, resistance to change, possibly corruption.

We the taxpayer paid for a report on casinos commissioned by the FF government, it basically recommended legalisation and regulation (I read it), over ten years later nothing has happened....and yet every large town in Ireland has a casino operating in the grey market. A cynic/conspiracy theorist might think that some of the powers that be are taking backhanders from certain large gambling companies, who might view casinos as impacting on their slice of the pie.

MOH

tdf7187 wrote: »

Innate conservatism, resistance to change, possibly corruption.

We the taxpayer paid for a report on casinos commissioned by the FF government, it basically recommended legalisation and regulation (I read it), over ten years later nothing has happened....and yet every large town in Ireland has a casino operating in the grey market. A cynic/conspiracy theorist might think that some of the powers that be are taking backhanders from certain large gambling companies, who might view casinos as impacting on their slice of the pie.

Yeah, a cynic/lunatic/conspiracy theorist might think that.

The high horse brigade

I guess it's just that Denis O'Brien hasn't shown an interest in opening one

ILoveYourVibes

Most casinos are not doing well.

But its hard to justify not having one there is a paddy power and ladbrokes on every corner.

leggo

The wind over here is blowing totally the other way in several directions. First off, gambling is moving online and I’d say over the next decade we’ll start seeing the old physical bookie shop disappearing. Secondly, Ireland has a huge gambling issue we’re just starting to face up to. Now I’m not for banning it or anything, and I don’t think we will ultimately when PP is one of our biggest exports, but we’re heading closer to that than opening up a mini-Vegas on our doorstep. Besides, Vegas exists anyway for those who want to avail of it.

Yurt2

I think Pat McDonagh (he of Supermacs) wanted to create a gambling / entertainment resort somewhere in Tipp complete with a concert arena. Michael Lowry was supporting it but I don't think it got any support for the legislative changes required.

Not a terrible idea to my mind, as long as it's done in a relatively classy way and kept out of cities / towns.

Bookies are worse; on every street corner with shady spides outside smoking a fag in between televised South African horseracing.

Brian?

Eric Cartman wrote: »

Do you see the hellholes ordinary public spaces become, can you imagine the filth a ‘centralised area of sin’ would become

What ordinary public spaces are hellholes?

To answer the original question: the whole island is a gambling district.

Del2005

Brian? wrote: »

What ordinary public spaces are hellholes?

To answer the original question: the whole island is a gambling district.

Every pub that has a bookies next door or built in.

Bookies work on exploiting loosers. See what they all do if you start winning big on their online portals, yet they never question how someone can lose hundreds of thousands. Casino's are as bad, they make most of their money on slot machine which favour the house.

banie01

Centralised gambling such as the Indian Casinos or Vegas and Reno in the US, Macau in China and so on.
Grew out of a rigidly enforced prohibition against gambling in their respective societies.

The US in particular, given the popularity of gambling is quite restrictive in where, when and how the activity is allowed.
Gambling Stateside was and to a large extent outside of NV and NJ is still seen as quite a criminal activity.

The rise of gambling towns, was both a criminal and a legislative master stroke IMO.
Small insignificant US towns, were leaned on to legislate to allow casinos, the tax streams generated huge income where previously there was none.
And the criminals had both a secured book to launder income and appear legitimate.

Similar circumstances with Indian Casinos.
Income and tax revenue are a huge boon, as local and state laws don't apply on reservation land the native American tribes used their status to facilitate building and developing Casino gambling to draw in large external revenue.

Gambling in Macau grew while it was in Portuguese hands and its special status and huge popularity of gambling amongst Chinese has kept it incredibly popular even post handover.

In Ireland and the UK, there is no real prohibition against bookmaking or gambling.
No societal taboo and not very restrictive legislation mean that bookies are very common in almost every town in Ire/UK.
As such there's no need for such a district, there is no prohibition to be avoided so they are ubiquitous here.

The side effect of centralised gambling has been the use of resort and Entertainment as additional draws to bring punters in from afar to gamble.
Again, as there's no prohibition here on the activity, there's no need to use additional selling points such as resort/entertainment and no need for the concurrent hotel capacity.

Darc19

Yurt! wrote: »

I think Pat McDonagh (he of Supermacs) wanted to create a gambling / entertainment resort somewhere in Tipp complete with a concert arena. Michael Lowry was supporting it but I don't think it got any support for the legislative changes required.

Nothing to do Pat Mc Donagh, it was the operators of Dr Quirkys in conjunction with Michael lowry.

It was to have a racetrack, hotels, casino etc etc, but they were really only interested in the casino.

That was at a time when everyone thought everyone was rich and we'd get richer and richer as our house prices went further into the stratosphere.

Then reality and recession bit.

Yurt2

Darc19 wrote: »

Nothing to do Pat Mc Donagh, it was the operators of Dr Quirkys in conjunction with Michael lowry.

It was to have a racetrack, hotels, casino etc etc, but they were really only interested in the casino.

That was at a time when everyone thought everyone was rich and we'd get richer and richer as our house prices went further into the stratosphere.

Then reality and recession bit.

Ah right you are. I had it in my head McDonagh to was involved somehow.

Still, if the project got off the ground as was mooted it would have been no bad thing. I think it would have been a success.

JMMCapital

We have some sense.

TheValeyard

JMMCapital wrote: »

We have some sense.

Agreed. We have enough addiction issues without adding more.

rossie1977

We are already a nation of gamblers. I doubt any country spends more time gambling on horse-racing than the Irish per capita.

Something like the Crown in Melbourne would fit in perfectly in city centre Dublin.

It's got decent security at the door to stop underage or excessively drunk/abusive people getting in and it's top class establishment akin to the 4-5 star Vegas establishments.

These mega- casinos don't just offer gambling. There is bars, restaurants, nightclubs, sports arenas, water parks, cinemas, shopping centres among other things.

Donald Trump

There are already two areas in Dublin:

1) The IFSC. Those fellas can gamble away, safe in the knowledge that even when they lose, they don't actually lose

2) Leinster House. Them boyos are gambling with your future

;-)

Pauliedragon

We have a gambling district. It's called a phone. The district is right in your pocket.

sonofenoch

6 bookies within 5mins walking distance of each other in my area ....doesn't get any more centralised than that

ceadaoin.

leggo wrote: »

The wind over here is blowing totally the other way in several directions. First off, gambling is moving online and I’d say over the next decade we’ll start seeing the old physical bookie shop disappearing. Secondly, Ireland has a huge gambling issue we’re just starting to face up to. Now I’m not for banning it or anything, and I don’t think we will ultimately when PP is one of our biggest exports, but we’re heading closer to that than opening up a mini-Vegas on our doorstep. Besides, Vegas exists anyway for those who want to avail of it.

Even in vegas, most of the money is made from entertainment these days, not gambling. Younger people generally dont gamble as much as previous generations, they go to vegas to party. Can't see irish casinos being able to do world class entertainment and dining tbh.

Dravokivich

ceadaoin. wrote: »

Even in vegas, most of the money is made from entertainment these days, not gambling. Younger people generally dont gamble as much as previous generations, they go to vegas to party. Can't see irish casinos being able to do world class entertainment and dining tbh.

South Dublin / north wicklow is practically a celebrity entertainer retirement region. We wont have issues getting a few shows going with the proper get up and tax incentives. We get passed over on a lot of arena tours becuase we lack huge indoor facilities and only have a short window for outdoor events.