Posted on: June 7, 2021, 01:14h.
Last updated on: June 7, 2021, 01:46h.
Papua New Guinea’s first casino could magnify social problems in the South Pacific nation, according to critics, who also say the proposal lacks transparency.
The Guardian reports that PNG’s National Gaming Control Board (NGCB) signed a deal ten days ago with the Paga Hill Development Corporation to bring a casino to capital Port Moresby.
Backers of the plan say the casino will attract China’s big-spending, globetrotting middle classes to the poverty-stricken country, and this will supposedly kickstart economic regeneration and provide jobs.
The project will cost US$43 million to build and will include a hotel, shopping malls, and cinemas.
High Crime Rates
But there are concerns that it could exacerbate social problems. PNG already has one of the highest crime rates in the world, particularly for violent crime, and this has hindered economic growth.
PNG ranks 136th out of 140 countries for “livability,” as of 2017, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, a score indicating that “most aspects of living are severely restricted.”
Paul Barker of the Institute of National Affairs in PNG, an independent Think Tank, told The Guardian the country does not have the welfare system or legal infrastructure to deal with an increase in problem gambling.
He noted that the prevalence of slots has many residents of Port Moresby “hooked and squandering their limited incomes in the hope of many a win, but instead leaving themselves in increasing debt and often failing to feed their facilities, breaking their families, causing people to lose their jobs and livelihood.”
Barker suggested casinos would be a “higher level.”
Slot Problem
Slot machines arrived in PNG in 1994. At the time, there was already a thriving gambling scene based on illegal card and dart games. These were pushed deeper underground as the new legal slots parlors took center stage.
But they have often kept their doors shut to the truly impoverished, preferring to target customers with money, according to Dr Anthony Pickles of the Department of Social Anthropology at Cambridge University.
It helped that legislators deliberately established a high minimum bet for the machines – starting at around $20.
But Barker does not believe the poor will be kept out the proposed casino.
PNG certainly doesn’t have the laws, penalties, governance, education, or welfare capacity that Australia has, and it has serious law and order problems already. It certainly shouldn’t want to worsen the situation, and having a major casino will certainly worsen the situation,” he said.
Paga CEO George Hallit said the casino would directly and indirectly create thousands of jobs and boost tourism to the region.
According to the US State Department, Port Moresby suffers from high unemployment, with up to half of the population living in squatter settlements.
Hey there just wanted to give you a quick
heads up and let you know a few of the images aren’t loading correctly.
I’m not sure why but I think its a linking issue. I’ve tried it in two different web
browsers and both show the same results.
I am really impressed with your writing skills as smartly as with the layout for your blog.
Is that this a paid topic or did you customize it your
self? Either way keep up the nice quality writing, it is uncommon to peer a great weblog like
this one nowadays..
Amazing issues here. I’m very satisfied to see
your post. Thank you so much and I’m looking ahead to contact you.
Will you please drop me a mail?
I’m really enjoying the design and layout
of your site. It’s a very easy on the eyes which makes it much more enjoyable for
me to come here and visit more often. Did you hire out a developer to create your theme?
Great work!
It is in reality a great and useful piece of information. I’m satisfied that you
simply shared this helpful information with us. Please stay
us up to date like this. Thanks for sharing.
Hello friends, how is all, and what you wish for to
say regarding this piece of writing, in my view its actually remarkable
in support of me.
Howdy are using WordPress for your blog platform? I’m new to the blog
world but I’m trying to get started and create my own. Do you need any coding expertise to make
your own blog? Any help would be really appreciated!
I have read so many content on the topic of the blogger lovers however
this paragraph is truly a fastidious post, keep it up.
Asking questions are actually good thing if you are not understanding anything
fully, however this paragraph provides fastidious understanding yet.
quest bars http://j.mp/3jZgEA2 quest bars
Hi there to every one, it’s actually a pleasant for me to visit this web page,
it includes precious Information. asmr https://app.gumroad.com/asmr2021/p/best-asmr-online asmr
I’ve been browsing online more than 3 hours today, yet I never found any interesting article
like yours. It’s pretty worth enough for me. In my view,
if all site owners and bloggers made good content as you did, the internet will be much more useful than ever before.
ps4 games https://j.mp/3z5HwTp ps4 games
Usually I don’t learn article on blogs, however I
wish to say that this write-up very pressured me to check out and do so!
Your writing style has been amazed me. Thank you, quite nice post.
quest bars https://www.iherb.com/search?kw=quest%20bars quest bars
I’m not that much of a internet reader to be honest but your
sites really nice, keep it up! I’ll go ahead and bookmark your
website to come back in the future. All the best scoliosis surgery https://coub.com/stories/962966-scoliosis-surgery scoliosis surgery
Good web site you have here.. It’s hard to find excellent writing like yours these days.
I truly appreciate people like you! Take care!! cheap flights http://1704milesapart.tumblr.com/ cheap flights
Thank you, I’ve just been looking for info about this subject for a while and yours is the
best I have discovered till now. But, what in regards to the conclusion? Are you
sure concerning the source? scoliosis surgery https://0401mm.tumblr.com/ scoliosis surgery
https://verynutri.com/product/amladi/
Hey there, I think your site might be having
browser compatibility issues. When I look
at your website in Ie, it looks fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it has some
overlapping. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up!
Other then that, great blog!
Appreciating the dedication you put into your blog and detailed information you provide.
It’s good to come across a blog every once in a while that isn’t the same old
rehashed information. Wonderful read! I’ve saved your site and I’m including your RSS feeds to my Google account.
I don’t even understand how I ended up right here, however I assumed this publish was once great.
I do not understand who you are however definitely
you are going to a well-known blogger in the event you
are not already. Cheers!
Peculiar article, exactly what I needed.|
What’s up, its fastidious post on the topic of media print,
we all understand media is a enormous source of data.
Hi, i read your blog occasionally and i own a similar one
and i was just curious if you get a lot of spam responses? If so how do you
protect against it, any plugin or anything you can advise?
I get so much lately it’s driving me insane so any assistance
is very much appreciated.