Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming June 2014 28 Gambling and the Law especially Americans, stayed away in droves. The casinos were closed for good; and the economy did collapse. Communist nations are not averse to legal gambling. Casinos in particular have been seen as a way of extracting hard currency from tourists and from the underground economy. I played in a casino in Hungary before the fall of the Eastern Bloc, with all transactions in Deutschmarks (this was before the euro). The Socialist Republic of Vietnam still has casinos. Surprisingly, so, too, does North Korea. And then, of course, there is Macau. The casinos there win more than all of the privately owned casinos in Nevada, New Jersey, Mississippi and the rest of the United States—combined. Macau, like Hong Kong, is a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. The PRC is still technically a communist country, although it would be more accurate to describe it as Marxist: widespread free enterprise capitalism flourishing under a totalitarian, one-party dictatorship. The bureaucrats who run Cuba can find a partial solution to the country’s present economic catastrophe and its pending political crisis by looking east—Far East. Cuba needs to pull a Macau. Resort casinos create jobs and bring in much-needed revenue. They could ease Cuba’s transition out of the economic stagnation created by pure communism, as they did in China. Of course, Cuba does not have hundreds of millions of middle-class residents with few other legal outlets for gambling. In fact, the people are so poor that it is one of the few countries where it actually is to the advantage of casino operators that locals would not be allowed to enter. But Cuba already attracts large numbers of tourists from Europe, Canada and Latin America; tourism is the nation’s leading industry. The spectacular success of Havana’s casinos in the 1950s show what legal gaming could do, especially once Americans can visit without restrictions. The major problem is political. Havana’s casinos were symbols of the prior dictator, Fulgencio Batista’s, corrupt regime. When asked about the Americans who ran Cuba’s gambling, Fidel said, “We are not only disposed to deport the gangsters, but to shoot them.” In the early 1960s, children could get cartoon trading cards with purchases of Felices (Spanish for “happy”) Frutas’s canned fruit. They would glue them into their “Album de la Revolucion Cubana”. One shows an angry crowd storming the Deauville Casino, with this label: “El pueblo destroza algunos casinos y casas de juegos,” “The people destroy some casinos and gambling houses.” Still, this was half a century ago. Times change. Fifty years before Macau became the top casino market in the world, gambling in China was punishable by death. Cuba already has tourist zones, where locals are not allowed to enter, except for work. Canadian tourists already fly directly to resorts on the southern coast of Cuba, just to go to the beach. The natural spot for the first Cuban casino resort is, ironically, the Bay of Pigs. The scene of the disastrous failed invasion of 1961 is now a thriving resort, especially for Europeans. But there is another spot where a casino would be even more of a positive political statement by the Cuban government: Guantanamo Bay. It is isolated from the vast majority of the population; at more than 500 miles from Havana, it is actually closer to Miami. There are beaches and an airport and one of the largest seaports in the world for cruise ships, if the US will allow free passage. Cuba could set up another tourist zone, with legal gambling, on the Cuban side of Guantanamo Bay. Local residents would be barred. But visitors from every other country, including the United States, would be welcome. Americans can travel to Macau without even having to get a visa. Wouldn’t it be great if Guantanamo Bay became better known for its resort hotels than for its prison? The natural spot for the first Cuban casino resort is, ironically, the Bay of Pigs. The scene of the disastrous failed invasion of 1961 is now a thriving resort, especially for Europeans.