Firstly, what I agree with most is the interesting point about “moral tainting” with Singapore’s soul and the soul of her citizens being stained and scarred. In my humble opinion that may be a tint biased, I find Singapore to be a country which ranks high on the “moralistic scale”. We have no civil wars, no twisted killers such as America or London with her infamous “Jack the Ripper”, are free of vices such as drugs and slavery and apart from Geylang, we are relatively prostitution free. However, while gambling is definitely not as “serious” as consuming drugs, and is not a crime either, it can also lead to moral degradation. Looking past just the act of gambling alone, the secondary sins caused by gambling include going to loansharks, extortion by loansharks, wife and children-beating, stealing money from companies or even stealing money from parents and family! As Aletheia Chan said, these ills caused by gambling cannot be coolly cast aside, with grand plans such as “counseling”, “financial aids” which may just come to naught, as they have in so many countries. Gambling, once it becomes firmly rooted in Singapore’s culture, will be hard to weed out.
Also, what horror if gambling becomes a new weekend pastime! While one in a million people who go the casino win big and become “richer than their richest dreams” as the cliché goes, the other 999,999 people usually end up squandering off a good portion of their salary or even their savings, as once one starts losing money in the casino, he just has to spend even more money in the vain hope that he can eventually recoup his losses! I myself know how much money a casino can drain, as I play some online games with casinos being one of the mini-games, and I always end up losing more and more money as I cannot stop myself from clinging onto that tiny hope that I will be that lucky person and win back money to recoup my losses. Thank goodness and thank God it is just virtual money! Sadly, the thousands I lose in the virtual world will become a reality in the real world for many real people who do not earn more than 5 grand a month and end up even poorer at the casino. How easy would it be for us Singaporeans to squander away our monthly pay packet, followed by our savings at the casino in just a few hours on a weekend! It would be disastrous to Singapore’s economy as how are people who have their savings wiped clean supposed to buy daily necessities, much less spend enough to churn on the economy?
However, while it is easy to predict things such as Singapore being knocked out from the World Cup’s qualifying stages for soccer in 2012; it would be overly presumptuous to assume that Singapore’s greed will lead to its demise. For one, a major “consolation” which is quite an irony, is that gambling has already been here for quite a long while, manifested in many forms such as Toto, jackpot machines, football and horse betting, 4d, or nearby casinos at Bintam. While these aren’t as convenient, or aren’t as cool as the new casino would be (The new casino would be the new “in” thing such as Cathay or Vivocity), Singaporeans have been used to gambling in a way. The hardcore gamblers will continue to be the scum of the Earth, still gambling at the casino, the less addicted gamblers may spend just a little more, but those who do not like gambling or are firmly against it will probably still stay away from the casinos. While there is the possibility as this article pointed out, that once we try gambling, we may be smoked on because of its addictive element, such as drugs or smoking, we can never know for sure what the future holds.
As of now, all we Singaporeans can do is just keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.
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