A leading figure in the UK gaming industry has suggested that plans for super casinos in London should be brought up again.
Roy Ramm is the governance and public affairs director at Caesars Entertainment and he said that things had changed significantly since the initial plans were looked at a decade ago. At that time, the idea proved to be controversial and the plans were rejected by Gordon Brown.
Mr Ramm went on to call the 2005 Gambling Act a “complete failure” and said that it hadn’t given local communities the casinos that they had bid for. The idea behind the legislation was that 20 new casinos would open with a maximum of 150 slot machines in each of them.
However, to date the only new casinos to get opened are those in Westfield Stratford City and Milton Keynes. He also pointed out that the Playing Safe initiative has helped to improve the industry standards, with a certification scheme that sees staff and bad practises independently assessed. Staff are also trained to look out for signs of distress in gamblers. The three casinos currently operated by Caesars in London are the first in the UK to get a certificate of good practise.
Mr Ramm stated that the new practises are about making gambling a “pastime not a problem”. He said that they want to see responsible gambling become a part of the casino industry in the way that food hygiene is now such a big part of the restaurant trade.
