Singapore Authorities announce that from now on until March 29, 2006, proposals for a casino resort at Marina Bay, near the city centre, will be examined. The price of the site is 705 million dollars.
Since the land price will be fixed, the proposal chosen will be the one of the best quality, without money bias interfering in the election, said Lim Hng Kiang, Minister of Trade and Industry. The same will apply for the second casino planned on the Island of Sentosa, whose launch of formal requests for proposals will be launched next year. Both casinos and resorts are expected to operate within 5 years. They are expected to raise tourism benefits and attract more visitors making of Singapore one of the main cities in Asia.
During decades, Singapore banned casino gambling, so this is a great reverse in the Government policies, offering now two licenses (and planning to offer more) to two casino resorts. Strict controls are carried out, however. There will be a tax of 100 Singapore dollars a day for citizens playing at the casino. Casinos will have hard restrictions on advertising as well. These measures will be implemented in order to prevent locals from gambling and avoid future addictions that might cost extra health expenses and create social problems. However, low tax rates from high rollers and revenue from habitual players have been fixed and the government has committed not to raise it in 15 years. There are also construction restrictions. The area set for gaming cannot exceed 15.000 square meters and the whole casino area cannot be bigger than 570.000 square meters. The rest can only be used for building tourist attractions and facilities which do not include residences or offices.
