Ngiam Tong Dow was against casino

ST Forum
Why Singapore should never have a casinoNgiam Tong Dow
466 words
21 October 2004
Straits Times
STIMES
English
(c) 2004 Singapore Press Holdings Limited
A CASINO will be a disaster for Singapore.
The idea was first mooted in 1964 to jump-start tourism in Singapore. At that time, the number of visitors was just 400,000. Today, without a casino, tourist arrivals are reaching eight million.
Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and his then lieutenants, Dr Goh Keng Swee and Dr Toh Chin Chye, decided against having a casino. Instead, we took the straight and narrow road and prospered.
Our younger successors touting a casino as a quick fix to lagging tourist numbers should ask themselves this question: Are we a lesser society than Macau without a casino?
Secondly, the Ministry of Finance and Ministry for Trade and Industry should reveal the economic numbers. I am quite certain that the increase in gambling taxes from having a casino will be far less than, say, a 10 per cent increase in the budgets of the Prisons Department, Singapore Police Force, Commercial Affairs Department, Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, Central Narcotics Bureau and Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, which will be left to pick up the pieces of broken families.
It will be the height of irresponsibility on the part of the pro-casino gentry to throw away our hard-earned virtues of thrift, diligence and honesty just for a quick fix.
The Singapore Tourism Board will have to think harder on how to provide more value and attract the rising middle class of Asean, China and India to holiday in Singapore and place their children in our schools, polytechnics and universities.
Las Vegas is only a dot in the Arizona desert. The acid rain of large-scale gambling falls on a continental North America. The social ill effects are totally diluted. In the case of Singapore, we will need to give over the whole tiny island to the moguls of gambling. There is no free lunch.
Not many Singaporeans know that the Economic Development Board had to give up our adolescent dream of having a steel mill because of the physical pollution. Similarly, the Public Utilities Board did not establish a coal-fired power station because the coal dust would be inches thick on every inch of Singapore.
Large-scale gambling Las Vegas-style will be even more insidious and deadly for Singapore.
Finally, I am of the view that our aspiration to be a world financial centre, which requires absolute integrity and honesty of banks and their employees, is the polar opposite of big-timecasino gambling. And casinos have to be big time to pay their way.
As a 67-year-old true-blue Singaporean, I appeal to our younger generation not to fall prey to the siren songs of Las Vegas. You will regret it.