A series of gaming hall license applications within Cospicua and Senglea has left residents there up in arms, amid fears that the already-disadvantaged area is being turned into “a huge gambling district”.
How exactly is adding four further gambling temptations going to help the locality?
But while the Cospicua local council has come out strongly against the applications, saying the gaming halls will add to the region’s socio-economic difficulties, its Senglea counterpart has opted to sit out the debate.
“We don’t feel it’s our place to take a stance on the issue,” Senglea mayor Justin Camilleri said. “There’s already one gaming hall a couple of doors down from the proposed one, so I can’t really see social problems being increased by others.”
The Cottonera region is one of Malta’s most socially deprived areas, with education, employment and income figures across the Three Cities significantly lower than the national average.
Senglea already plays host to one gaming hall, with an application for a second one due to be discussed before the Malta and Environment Planning Authority today.
Cospicua residents face an even greater challenge, with some four such applications currently before Mepa. If approved, these will join the two gambling halls already present within the locality.
“We’ve strongly objected to these applications. We already have a number of social problems in Cospicua – how exactly is adding four further gambling temptations going to help the locality?” asked mayor John Scerri. He said that the council took exception to all such applications. “This isn’t about individuals or any personal grudges. We want all such applications to be rejected.”
Mr Scerri’s concerns about gambling’s social impact appears to be borne out by research, with UK-based independent academic studies having found that gambling-related costs outweigh benefits by a factor of three.
Gambling revenue is not evenly distributed across clientele: studies in Canada, the USA and Australia have all found that anything up to half of all gambling revenue is derived from pathological gamblers.
Perhaps most damningly, a 2002 study by Brown University academics found that slot machine and electronic gaming devices – precisely the sort of devices present within gambling halls – were the most addictive and damaging forms of gambling, with users getting hooked three times faster than traditional forms of gambling.
Mepa screens potential gaming hall applications and analyses them according to the corresponding local plan for the area, a Mepa spokesman explained.
Although the social impact of such halls typically falls outside Mepa’s remit, section 5.17 of the Grand Harbour Local Plan notes that the plan can “introduce relevant policies which may assist in meeting social goals, for example by positively encouraging particular types of development or restricting others”.
Mr Scerri suspected that the sudden proliferation of gaming hall applications was related to the Dock 1 regeneration project. “My guess is that applicants are hoping to get a foot in the door before the project is finished, so to speak. But why should Cottonera residents pay the price?”
Gaming Device Regulations, which seek to better regulate gaming devices, came into force in May 2011. But sources told The Times that the regulations were inadvertently having the opposite effect in this case, by making it harder for gaming hall applications to be rejected.
“The new regulations lay out specific conditions which applicants must meet. On paper, that’s a good thing. But once an applicant meets those conditions – closing at 11 p.m., not serving food and so on – a case officer has very little grounds for recommending an application’s refusal,” the source said.
Meanwhile, lobby groups will continue to try and mobilise residents to oppose such applications, said Caroline Said from the Friends of Cottonera Forum.
“There are opportunities for so many other, more positive income-generating activities within the area. But to put a stop to these applications, we need more residents to speak out.”