Inside Asian Gaming

August 2015 inside asian gaming 33 Gambling and the law 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 Canada, Europe and Latin America; tourism is the nation’s leading industry. The spectacular success of Havana’s casinos in the 1950’s show what legal gaming could do, especially once Americans can visit without restrictions. The major problem is political. The Revolution unleashed a deeply buried hatred of the casinos. The millions living in poverty resented the ostentatious displays of wealth, well-known to be owned by Meyer Lansky and other leaders of American organized crime. This antipathy was exacerbated by the non-casino slot machines that were found all over the island. It was also common knowledge that the money from those gaming devices, like the centavos deposited into the omnipresent parking meters, ended up in the bank accounts of Roberto Fernández Miranda, the brother-in-law of the dictator, Fulgencio Batista. As T.J. English put it, “There were many reasons to dislike Batista—his shameless coup, violent repression, censorship, corruption, obsequious relationship with gangsters and embezzlers—but in the end the hotel-casinos came to symbolize all of the above.” When Batista fled the island, the people took out their rage on these symbols, burning slot machines and trashing parking meters. Symbolism works both ways. Castro’s men brought pigs with them from the countryside. They released them “in the lobby of the [Riviera] hotel and casino, squealing, tracking mud across the floor, shitting and peeing all over Lansky’s pride and joy, one of the most famous mobster gambling emporiums in all the world.” 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 sea ports 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 hotel-casino resorts than for its prison? 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.