Inside Asian Gaming

inside asian gaming August 2015 32 They proved to be right, but too late. Castro relented and allowed the casinos to reopen. But tourists, especially Americans, stayed away in droves. And the economy did collapse. The Soviet bloc never could supply enough tourists to make up for being isolated from the US. I remember seeing faded posters for Havana vacations in a tourist bureau in Prague, shortly after the Velvet Revolution. But the other store windows were practically empty, since there was little to buy and few people had any money, or the right to fly over the barbed wire and minefields that had surrounded Communist Czechoslovakia. The fall of the Iron Curtain shows what we can expect for Cuba: A combination of two of the greatest expansions of legal gaming in the last 40 years. The dissolution of the Soviet Union and the replacement of communism with capitalism lead to an explosion of casinos throughout Eastern Europe and Russia. And the death of the dictator Francisco Franco led to an explosion of slot machines and other legal gaming throughout Spain. Although Franco was strongly anti- communist, the comparison with Castro is apt. The Iberian peninsula and Latin America have a long tradition of strongmen, “caudilhos” in Portuguese, in Spanish “caudillos.” Franco ruled from 1936 to 1975, and even called himself “Caudillo de España, por la gracia de Dios;” which Wikipedia translates as “Leader of Spain, by the grace of God.” Castro has been the caudillo since 1959, first as Prime Minister, then President and now as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba. Due to illness, he turned over much of his power to his younger brother Raúl on 31st July, 2006. Raúl has shown some independence. He doesn’t really have what it takes to be a caudillo. So he might start true liberalization as soon as the sickly Fidel passes away. Raúl is also in his 80’s, so both Castro brothers will probably be gone within the next 10 years. The caudillo tradition seems to be coming to an end. The US will drop its economic embargo when democracy and capitalism come to Cuba, in whatever form they take. In fact, as we know from Macau, democracy is not the essential part of the equation. China is still Marxist, but it is hard to call it communist. The initial breakthrough will probably take place on cruise ships, with casinos, returning to the Port of Havana. Initially, gaming will only be permitted on the high seas. But it is a short step from there to allowing the casinos to be open while the ships are docked. Bingo machines are sweeping Latin America. These are often called Class II. Of course, there is no Class I or Class III, since the categories were created by, and apply only to, the US Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. But, it is an easy way to distinguish these gaming devices from true slot machines, at least for political cover. True casinos, with true slots and table games, are also common in much of Central and South America. But even more so in the Caribbean. A free Cuba will quickly allow casinos to reopen, in high- quality hotels designed for, and possibly even limited to, tourists. At the moment, Cuba has no legal gambling. But other communist nations have had casinos and lotteries for decades. Casinos in particular were seen as a way of extracting hard currency from tourists and from the underground economy. I played in a casino in Hungary when it was still communist, with all transactions in Deutsche Marks (this was before the euro). Gaming was often limited to resorts, with locals barred from betting, or even entering. 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. Gambling and the law 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.