Opinion: Are The Integrated Resorts Really Good For Us?

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Gilbert Goh

I applaud the move by the integrated resorts to check on the names of gamblers before allowing them to enter the casinoes when ithey open next year. I am not in favour of having the integrated resorts (IR) in our country in the first place. Casinoes have a bad history of association with the five big vices: prostitution, loan shark, alcoholism, money laundering and of course gambling. Gangsterism also reined in such environment.as illicit activitites prospered.

People who lose money will want to work for loan sharks when they could not pay back on time their own loans. We have already seen a spike in loan shark activitites this half year. Nothing will prepare us for next year as Singapore anticipates the opening of not one but two integrated resorts.

Another bad news is that an initial high suicide rate also accompanies most casinoes when they opened for business.

In Melbourne for example, when they opened their Crown Casion many years back, the Aussies gassed themselves to death when they have a bad day at the table. Casinoes in Macau also have a reputation for being a gang-controlled turf. Corruption and all the associated vices all have long-held association with casinoes as the gaming industry has grown to be a huge billion-dollar empire. Even the revenue churned up by the casinoes have huge impact on a country’s gross domestic product (GDP)!

Harmful Effects of Gambling

Thus, the pre emptive move by the resorts to check gamblers before they enter the casinoes is a wise move. This will ensure that serial gamblers and those who are still undischarged bankrupt will not get to enter the casinose at all. Family members will now sigh in relief that their gambling loved ones will somehow be prevented from approaching the casinoes as they can now provide authorities with athe names of their loved ones whom they deem problematic gamblers.

I also hope that casinos can place trained counsellors on site to counsel problem gamblers. Such services can hopefully allow problem gamblers to seek assistance when they have a bad loss at the tables. Support groups and free literature can also be made available to those who want assistance to resolve their problem.

Gambling is a serious home – breaker vice that has ruin many families. Those who resort to borrowing from loan sharks to gamble also jeopardise their family’s safety and well being. We have heard too many publicised stories of how families were tragically broekn up becasue of loan shark’s harassment. Some even resort to suicide to resolve their borrowing problem.

I have heard of friends who lost their homes and families when they lose their sense of control over their gambling habit. Gambling, like alcohol and drugs, can be an addictive clamp that latch on to a person with its vice-like grip. The only way to curb their addiction is to deny them the opportunities to gamble away. Gambling can also be associated with problems in the family and work place. Some gamble away so that they can forget their problems and there is also that feel-good natural high whenever the person wagers. I am sure many who read this will agree with me.
I once was addicted to the jackpot machines many years back. There was some issue at home and I stayed away in the Civil Service club pulling away from my problem. I forgot about my problem while focusing on the digits at the panel of the machine. I realised that it became an addiction when I have to set aside half of my salary for the spin! After about 6 months later (and some losses), I decided to give up the machine and re focused on my family. I took up jogging to replace those time I spent at the club. The addiction was fortunately broken. I wished that such stories can be easily duplicated in reality but we all know that it isn’t so.

I hope that the authoritites will not loosen it’s control over problem gamblers here. Doing so will only heighten the growing social problem associated with gambling and illegal borrowing. We already have hundreds of legal betting booths dotting the island when one can wager daily on 4D, Toto, football and car racing. Many I know also frequent clubs to have a go at the one-armed bandit (jackpot) when they feel like it. Some friends even drive up to Gentings whenever they are free to have a wager at the casinoes there. It is only a 4-hour drive nonstop. For those who like a short ferry drive offshore into international waters, there are cruise ships that allow gamblers a chance to wager with free food and lodging thrown in. They only need to exhange $500 worth of gambling chips to be entitled to such frills. Naturally, loan sharks and prostitutes also accompanied gamblers into their den. Most of the people who frequented such offshore spots are uncles and aunties with lots of free time to kill. Most are Chinese of course.

The two casinoes will surely fulfill the fantasy of many gamblers with ready cash to have a good wager. Gambling is really the past time of many Singaporeans here though some when they are addicted will face the devastating consequences of their past time.

Jobs for Local or Foreign Workers?

On a positive note, a friend of mine managed to find a service job at the Sentosa’s IR at the prime age of 61 years old. He is unhappy at his previous job and managed to clear the interview at the IR after one try to land the plum job. Looking ten years younger than his age and speaking pretty good English, he is every human resources’ ideal of filling up the quota for the aged local worker. His pay is in the low one thousand dollars but he is not complaining. For some strange reason, he told me that he only works two shifts and escaped the dreaded midnight shift. Maybe becasue of his old age, the human resource must have anticipate his bodily resistance to working the late night shift and put him on the two other easier shifts.

Integrated Resorts the Marina Bay Sands and Integrated Resorts Resorts World at Sentosa are looking to fill an incredible 30,000 positions by 2015.

Yet many local Singaporeans have lamented to me that the IRs will not really create the kind of employment that the Prime Minister has promised few years back. With many positions created belonging to the service industry and the low starting pay of between $1000 – $1300, many Singaporeans have shy away from such positions. There is also the rumour that Filipinoes will take up such service jobs in droves as they are deem to be more service-orientated and cheerful. Singaporeans like to be served and do not like to serve others.

So it seems that the IRs will create the kind of jobs that will not really benefit the local population. I have always advocated that it is not the type of jobs that is important when it comes to employment but the kind of salary that it will fetch.

There is really not much encouragement for a breadwinner to take up a service job with three shifts that pays only $1200. After the mandatory CPF deduction, he is left with only $1000. If he has two kids, it will be tough to make ends meet even though the wife is also working.

Conclusion

One way out of such predicament is for employers to have a different pay scale – a higher one for the local workers and a lower one for foreigners. The complicated employer’s quota system of employing a fixed numebr of local workers so that foreigner workers are allowed in means that the IRs will need to put in alot of effort to attract the locals into such menial jobs that pay little. Having a different pay scale will hopefully solve the problem here.

Our local workers will get a higher salary and employers can then get the required quota to get in their foreign workers to offset the low take-up rate among our local workers. I am sure that our foreigner friends will not mind the different salary scale. The salary that they are getting here is already enormous compare to the one that they are getting in their own country. Some earn as little as $200 a month and getting $1000 is like a General Manager’s pay back home. It is no wonder that they flock into our island state by the tens of thousands. You see them everywhere now in our shopping malls and MRT trains. I felt like a foreigner in my own country when I was visiting Singapore two months ago. They all look so happy and contented with their family members.

The country now needs to think out of the box to level the playing ground on the employment of local and foreign workers. The current situation does not seem to benefit the local workers at all as employers can get away with paying low salary to attract in foreigners. Everyone benefits from such system except our local workers it seems.