Casinos on Cayman

Casinos in the Cayman Islands

Although the specifics haven’t been announced, Premier McKeeva Bush has said he will put the issue of legalised gambling in the Cayman Islands to a vote this fall. Governor Duncan Taylor also spoke about a vote “to give people a chance to reject or accept gaming as part of economic development” in his Throne Speech in June.

Since that time, pundits on both sides of the emotive issue have spoken about why they feel legalised gambling – specifically in casinos – should or shouldn’t be allowed here.

For his part, Mr. Bush says the government isn’t taking a public position on the issue one way or the other. Instead, he says it will leave it to voters to decide. If and when a referendum or some other kind of vote occurs on the gambling issue, it is a sure bet that the debate beforehand will be intense.

The idea of legalised gambling in Cayman is a divisive one. A poll conducted on the caycompass.com website in June showed a slim majority of respondents in favour of casino gaming, although a little more than a fifth of those people thought only visitors should be able to gamble in the casinos. Forty-seven per cent of the respondents didn’t think there should be casinos allowed in Cayman at all.

Two forms of gambling have been discussed to this point: a national lottery and casinos. Those who advocate for a lottery note that illegal numbers have been prevalent on Grand Cayman for at least 20 years. However, given the administrative costs of a lottery and Cayman’s small population, most people agree that the only way a lottery could bring in significant revenue would be if it were either actively marketed overseas or aligned with a regional lottery scheme. Regardless, the lottery offers very little in terms of offshoot economic benefits besides jobs for the administrators. Even if marketed overseas, the lottery would not constitute a tourist attraction.

Casinos, on the other hand, could offer a multitude of offshoot economic benefits and act as another tourist attraction in Cayman.

The case for casinos

Pro-casino advocates actually don’t like the word ‘gambling’, instead preferring ‘gaming’, a term that better infers the entertainment aspect of casinos. A paper prepared by Cayman businessman Kevin Doyle for the Cayman Islands Tourism Association in March titled Entertainment Gaming in the Cayman Islands spoke about how half of all revenues in Las Vegas are generated through selling the entertainment appeal of the destination.

“Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut attracts 50,000 daily visitors to its resort, of which an estimated 40,000 avail of its daily, non-gaming activities.”

Doyle’s paper talks about Cayman’s need to broaden its revenue base and suggests casinos would be a good option. Speaking about the paper, Doyle said casinos could be a big boost for tourism.

“Our economy is in desperate need of expanding the range of tourism products, and [casinos are] just one of many, but probably the best in terms of job creation,” he said.

Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman developer Mike Ryan believes casino gaming would be good for Cayman, but he cautions that expectations should be realistic.

“Gaming is not a magic wand to fix all your economic troubles,” he said. “But it is a useful amenity to expand your market and offer an activity pretty much everyone we compete with has, or is bringing in.”

Ryan said there is little for people over 25 years old to do at night in Cayman other than go to restaurants.

“If we really want to attract people, we have to have something else to offer them.”

In addition to gaming, Ryan said, casinos support other nightlife activities like performing artist shows, something that would expand Cayman’s entertainment options.

Doyle believes casinos will draw tourists, particularly from the US, to the Cayman Islands.

“Many Americans have to travel farther to go to the casinos of Vegas or Atlantic City than if they were flying to Cayman,” he said, noting that Cayman has the added amenities of year-round sun, sea and beaches.

“The real key to having a successful casino resort in Cayman is in significantly increasing the current size of the airlift,” Doyle said. “If that can’t be accomplished, then a resort casino cannot succeed, but if it can be accomplished, then the spin-off benefits for the national airline, government, taxis, restaurants, etcetera, will be huge.”

Doyle also believes that having casinos in Cayman could make the building of a much-needed convention centre feasible and help improve occupancy numbers.

Another benefit of having casinos, pointed out in Doyle’s submission to the Tourism Association, is that the operators would conduct extensive additional advertising campaigns that would promote the Cayman Islands as a tourism destination.

In addition, because there would be no taxes on gambling winnings here, Doyle believes Cayman could attract “a lot of wealthy players, including international tournament players”.

Other benefits

Doyle’s submission to the Tourism Association outlined several other benefits of having casinos in Cayman beyond bringing in more tourists. Among the suggested benefits were: construction activities in building the casinos; a diverse range of new employment opportunities at the casinos; more business for local suppliers of goods and services; and revenues to government from fees charged to the casinos.

As for employment, Doyle pointed out that in the Bahamas, where residents are not allowed to gamble in the casinos but are still allowed to work in them, about 15,000 Bahamians are employed in the casino industry. He said casinos here could provide employment to a wide age spectrum of Caymanians.

Speaking about employment opportunities in casinos, Doyle noted that there are “many similarities in the skill sets required by trained workers in the banking and finance industry that could easily be applied in gaming operations”.

“The casino floor is made up of dealers employed as roulette, craps or card dealers,” he said. “These are all well-trained positions which usually attract smart young people, good with maths, accurate and reliable at counting, with the ability to work and focus for long hours on both day and night shifts. The average age group is usually below 30-35 with floor supervisors and pit managers tending to be upwards of 35, but unlikely to be over 55.”

Doyle said people older than 50 usually found work in casinos as accountants, cashiers, security, cleaners and other light-duty works.

“However, if the casino is part of a resort complex, then you are likely to find that the older age group are employed in both part-time and full-time capacities in areas such as food and beverage, housekeeping, gardening, and various aspects of administration – in fact the same areas that they are employed in in any resort hotel.”

Which model for Cayman?

March thinks Cayman would be an ideal place for well-run casinos.

“Cayman has the best infrastructure, the best social conditions, the best immigration controls and regulators in the Caribbean,” he said.

However, the devil is often in the details, and choosing the correct model for Cayman would be vital to the success of legalising gambling here. Many countries, like the Bahamas, prohibit their residents from gambling in casinos, something Doyle disagreed with in his submission to the Tourism Association.

“…It would seem illogical in a democratic, well-educated and very affluent society to apply a complete ban on resident Caymanians from availing themselves of such a level of entertainment in their home country,” he stated.

A couple of practices in most casinos around the would also have to be looked at more closely in Cayman. For instance, casinos in Las Vegas and other places are open 24 hours a day, Doyle said. “The slot machines are left running 24 hours, but table games are usually run on a limited basis until the evening demand starts at about 10pm,” he said. “Casinos make their money from gaming revenues and not from liquor sales, but, to max out on the opportunity to generate revenues, they need to be open until 3am or 4am, consequently, local liquor licensing times would have to be adjusted accordingly.”

Doyle said that part of the tradition is for casinos to give free drinks to players, something he said would likely also have to occur in Cayman, in spite of it being more expensive to do so than in places in the US.

Doyle’s submission suggested that casino operators here be asked to indicate, among other things, the degree of commitment to supporting local charities and the community in general, and toward minimising the possibility of adverse social consequences.

Many of the adverse social consequences of casinos arise from compulsive gamblers. If Cayman were to legalise gambling and allow residents to participate, having treatment programmes available for compulsive gamblers, and an identified source of the funding for those treatment programmes, could minimise the negative effects.

March, who said he isn’t particularly interested in participating in gambling himself, pointed out that just because a person gambles doesn’t mean he or she will become a compulsive gambler.

“As a Caymanian, I’m insulted at the idea that just because a casino opens up that I’m going to become a compulsive gambler,” he said.

Although Doyle’s submission to the Tourism Association concedes that Cayman residents would be attracted to the novelty factor of a casino opening here, he believes that it will wear off.

“What applies to all things new will surely apply here, too,” he stated. “That is, that the initial curiosity will soon fade and life will return to normal, with the casino becoming just one more venue to go to on a night out.”