Game On

The stakes are high for Casino Royale's World Gaming Destival

Nigel Britto

It's Friday night at Casino Royale and the gaming deck, a large rectangular hall the size of a football field that is filled with tables, slot machines and all kinds of gambling paraphernalia, is milling with people. 

This weekend there's more activity than usual. Faces, some contorted in concentration, are eying the tables as the dealers, most of them from the Northeast, size up both the players and the games they are priming themselves up for. The stakes have been declared and there's big money to be won at the World Gaming Festival.

Anish Dedhia, who visits Goa at least once every two months, and not for its sand, sea and sun, is one of the eager bunch of about 300 gamblers who have each paid upwards of Rs 1 lakh per game to participate in the competition. They are all sweaty with excitement. After all, the total bounty of each game is the number of participants multiplied by Rs 100,000. The winner can take home 50% of this; silver gets 30% and bronze 10%. The next two after that pocket 5% each. So if 20 people register for a game, there's Rs 20 lakh in the kitty, out of which the winner gets 50% — Rs 10 lakh. 

To add to the atmosphere, the casino has provided registered players free return airfare, concierge services, five-star accommodation, lavish buffet meals, chauffer-driven luxury transfers and even entry to some of Goa's hottest parties. On the floor above the gaming deck there's live music and a restaurant, on top of that a sundeck and helipad. This is the high life, Goa-style. 

Organizers say the event will incorporate elements from some of the best gaming festivals around the world. "I travelled to 14 countries before deciding on the festival's format," says Narinder Punj, the casino's managing director and the man who conceptualized the gala that will conclude on Monday. Players compete in five games — Texas Hold'em Poker, American Roulette, Baccarat, Indian flush (a kind of teen patti) and Blackjack. Most gaming festivals in India test the players in only one game. The Asian Poker Challenge, held here since 2010, is one such event. It is this difference , according to Punj, which makes the World Gaming Festival unique. 

But is Punj looking at the WGF to be a regular event? "Yes," he says. "Perhaps we'll have it once or twice a year. It's now a registered Intellectual Property, so we can go pretty much anywhere in the world with it". 

Fuelled by the reputation of being a 'cheap' destination, millions of backpackers kept trooping into Goa 50 years after European travellers first discovered it. A few years ago, the Goa government realized this and, not wanting to host only the poor sorts, it took an apprehensive gamble. If Goa offered legal avenues for gambling , older tourists with higher spending capacity would eventually come. 

As it turns out, they did. 

Four years ago, Goa's gambling industry comprised the solitary Casino Goa and a handful of slot machines in the state's five-star hotels. In 2007, the government took the step of forking out more licenses in order to attract tourists who take a detour to Nepal, where gambling is legal, and perhaps to emulate Macau, the world's gambling capital. Now, there are six floating on the river Mandovi alongside Panaji, and 13 in hotels, or 'on-shore' as they're legally classified. 

According to the Goa Public Gambling Act, 1976, cards and players and dealers are only permitted off-shore while electronic slot machines make up the industry on land. Seasoned gamblers will tell you gambling on slot machines is about as interesting as watching a game of golf on TV. Yet, rough estimates indicate revenue generated from the industry has gone up from Rs 40 crore to Rs 300 crore in just three years. 

"There has been considerable growth in the casino industry. We've seen a 100% growth in revenue every year," says Xavier Vaz, who runs the casino at the Goa Marriott Hotel. Mumbai-based Delta Corp is one of the earliest entrants in the sector and is the only listed company in this space. It owns two off-shore casinos in Goa —Casino Royale and Caravela, and plans to add another one, Kings' Casino, next year. Delta Corp's gaming and hospitality revenue has increased from Rs 11 crore in 2008 to 101 crore in 2011. As a result, a bunch of individual investors led by billionaire Rakesh Jhunjhunwala has put in Rs 280 crore in Delta. 

But not all is hunky-dory. Policy needs to be sharpened and streamlined. The growth of the industry is severely hampered by an utterly-confused government that, in the words of one casino owner, "doesn't know its ass from its elbow". For one, the state seeks to bar local from entering casinos for gambling by bringing an amendment to the Goa Public Gambling Act, 1976. Early in 2009, it increased the entry fee for all casinos from Rs 200 to Rs 2,000, resulting in a drastic drop in visitors — in six months the number dropped from around 90,000 to little more than 15,000. 

Industry insiders are unanimous in their view that an authority on the lines of the Nevada Gaming Commission (for Las Vegas) or the Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau (for Macau) be established. "The industry is growing and government policies must be transparent and consistent. Sadly, that is missing at the moment," says Shailendra Singh, who runs four on-shore casinos. 

Macau, Goa's Portuguese cousin that was given to China in 1999, is oft-cited as a shining example of what a healthy and well-regulated gambling industry can do (see box). The inconsistency of Goa's policy on casinos can be blamed partly on the opposition and an active moral police whose concerns revolve round prostitution , crime and money-laundering. 

In one particularly interesting incident , former CM Manohar Parrikar quoted his gynaecologist friends to say there has been an increase in abortions in Panaji — a statement he promptly blamed on 'wrongful activities' on riverborne casinos and called for the entry of women and children to be regulated. 

"We employ both men and women. If they fall in love, how can you blame the casino?" asks Punj. Fr Maverick Fernandes of the CSJP, the social wing of Goa's powerful Catholic church, counters that and says, "Gambling is a vice and revenue can't be justified by vices; tourism should promote values rather than vices". Hoteliers, too, are reluctant to come out in support of the industry. "It is our policy not to comment on casinos," a Taj Vivanta official said when contacted by Sunday Times. 

But perception about casinos among locals has seen change that industrywallahs call healthy. As recently as five years ago, few parents wanted their kids working in a casino. "Today, around 75% of my staff is Goan," says Punj. Chances , another casino, has locals filling up almost 100% of the jobs. "There are few employment opportunities in Goa, and any industry that generates employment needs to be encouraged," says prominent Panaji career counselor Abhijeet Naik. "If regulated properly, the industry can bring in a fortune in revenue, and this is a gamble the government cannot afford to miss out on."

This article was first published on The Sunday Times of India nationwide in its edition dated September 25, 2011.