Workers: Casinos don’t cause crime

PRIVATE CASINO workers said their establishments do not contribute to crime in Trinidad and Tobago but the National Lotteries Control Board (NLCB) could not bluff the population on that score. Hundreds of placard-bearing casino workers assembled outside Whitehall yesterday, prepared to roll the dice in the hope that Prime Minister Patrick Manning would emerge to grant an audience with them to hear their concerns.

In delivering the 2003/2004 Budget in Parliament on October 6, Manning announced a range of tax increases for private members clubs which include slot machine fees increasing from $2,000 to $10,000 per annum, poker table fees increasing from $8,000 to $20,000 and fees for other specified tables increasing by 25 percent with immediate effect. Asked about criticisms that private casinos contribute to crime by promoting activities such a money-laundering, Ma Pau Members Club human resources manager Sherrie Persad declared: “Has that been proven? I have been working in the club for seven years, I can definitely say that is not true. Lotto and Play Whe are the biggest money launderers. Everybody should know that.”

Persad claimed that Government was talking double standards on the gambling industry. She said while the increased taxes in the Budget will close down private members’ clubs and throw some 1,500 workers on the breadline, moves were afoot between NLCB and British company G-Tech to place video slot machines in certain public locations. Persad added that “a controlled environment” exists inside the clubs but not in the places where these machines will reportedly be placed. “There are going to place it (machines) throughout the country. You will have minors. More corruption, more crime, what is the Government saying? “They are not addressing that issue. All they addressing is the taxes and putting all these people out of jobs,” she declared. Persad appealed to the Government to be “lenient” on the casino workers. “It’s going to have a lot of people out of jobs. It’s going to have more crime because what are these people going to do? They are not going to get employment,” she said.