Will Ireland Legalize Casinos in 2008?
William N. Thompson

In part one of this series I examined the gray-area casino clubs of Ireland, which emerged after the turn of the century. Still, as of this time, why hasn’t Ireland embraced legalized casino gaming, unlike all other countries of the European Union except Cyprus? To find out, I simply asked people in Ireland "Why?" From their answers, I identified seven major factors to explain the Republic of Ireland’s anti-casino position for the past 76 years. For each factor, I also identified major changes suggesting that legalization could be forthcoming.

1. The Irish Personality and the "All-In" Spirit

There is an "all-in" spirit that defines much of what is "Irish." Mythical heroes such as Cuchulainn fought to the death, and then kept on fighting. Rebels took to the streets with odds and well-armed enemies stacked against them. And when they "won" their revolution, many couldn’t stop. They started a civil war. An inability to realize the second rule of a Kenny Rogers Poker game (know when to fold ’em) might make casino play a very dangerous commodity. And within the Irish, a burning desire to fight on remains. But a major change has occurred as well. Ireland was a land of isolation politically, economically and ethnically until very recently. Now its leadership has opened the doors to world trade and immigration. A perceived political need to protect the Irish common folk from their own foibles is blended with a realization that growing numbers of the population are Eastern European and Asian. Moreover, as we see with the second factor, the Irish can no longer tell themselves, "Let it ride, we have nothing to lose." There is now much to lose: money.

2. Poverty and Casino Prospects

While leaders could feel that the Irish may need protection from the effects of their innate personality drives, it could also be suggested that some economic protections would also be appropriate. Casinos are most successful when they are located to exploit a market, and markets are comprised of people with money. Time and again, I met people who commented, "The Irish do not have money, hence there are no casinos." A cab driver offered his opinion that the "Irish don’t have money — poor people can’t gamble." A government official offered that the law against gambling was in place to "protect the poor."1

Ireland had been engulfed in poverty during centuries of colonial domination by the British and by their own leaders who glorified an isolated rural economy. But times have been changing. Steps toward development took hold as Ireland joined the European Union in 1973, and decades of international investment in Irish infrastructure had positive economic results in the 1990s. In the 21st century, the country has witnessed levels of prosperity and a new phenomenon: many more immigrants coming to emigrants than people leaving.2

The Irish are becoming heavy spenders. Only in recent years have major investors seen possibilities in cultivating gambling proclivities among the Irish by offering casino games.

3. Corruption in Politics and Legalized Casinos do not Form Good Partnerships

Ireland’s political attention span did not leave much time for things other than the spirit of nationalism until recent years of prosperity. The consumption of the public mind with "what it is to be Irish" caused interests to neglect efficiency and honest administration in public affairs. Localism, nepotism and outright corruption left a mark on the body politic. Office holders became auctioneers, traders and bargain makers for a variety of commercial interest groups. Their main goal was to put together coalitions of bargainers so that they could emerge as winners in the elections. They also accepted policies that created government corporations which then were used as vehicles for patronage.

In the 1990s the misuse of office was revealed, with national tribunals focusing on several scandals. Irish political scientists Neil Collins and Mary O’Shea documented many of the events and reported an international "Corruption Perception Index," with Ireland ranking 19th of 20 industrial countries on popular beliefs regarding the integrity of government. Deep down, leaders must have asked themselves: Would this perceived atmosphere of corruption be exacerbated with the establishment of casinos?3

Casino consultant J.J. Silks agreed with the premise that Irish casinos might present ideal venues for money laundering and the exchange of money for political favors. As an advocate of legalized casinos, he saw a necessity for new laws with regulations and controls over the exchanges of funds in casinos.4

As prosperity has replaced poverty, attention has shifted and citizens have begun to expect that leaders will deliver services that are worth the tax money they are giving the government. The current inquiries are perhaps making the point clear that corruption is no longer accepted. Leaders are on notice that corrupt acts may result in exposure and ballot repudiations, or more serious consequences.

Moreover, Irish participation in the politics of the European Union has required that political officials spend public funds responsibly. This is especially the case when money has come into Ireland through European Union grants. These grants are monitored and audited by persons outside of the Irish public officials’ control.5 Political leaders today would be more reluctant than they were but a generation ago to participate in overt payoffs that might otherwise be associated with the presence of casinos. Casino gambling no longer offers a major threat to the proper functioning of government.

4. A Culture of Latent and Manifest Violence

In 1987, I visited the casino in San Sebastian, Spain, located in the Londres Hotel. The casino was empty except for a few machine players. The manager indicated that the casino was failing due to a lack of local players, although it was the only casino in a region of 2 million people. It was in Basque country. Basque separatists had initiated an active campaign of bombings, assassinations, kidnappings and ransom demands, and other guerilla warfare-type activities. People with wealth carefully hid their resources from public view, lest they become victims. If they had desires to participate in casino gambling, they ventured to far away places in other countries — to Madrid or to Spanish casinos on the Mediterranean coast. The local casino was to be avoided.6

The San Sebastian experience serves as a model that casino investors desire to avoid. Unfortunately, the model has marked parallels with the Irish political milieu of the 20th century. The civil war never totally ended. Even in modern times, the Irish Republic Army and its political arm (Sinn Fein) were clandestinely and openly supported by funds from the south and from other places as well, including America. Funds were also secured through bank robberies and kidnappings in the south, as well as demands for protection money. Over the decades, 3,000 persons, most of them in the north, died in assassinations and bombings.

But perhaps we have entered a new era. The milieu of violence has waned with prosperity and with the influx of new ethic groups. As mentioned above, people now have something to lose besides their ethnic dignity — money. Moreover, the force of religion on people’s lives has abated, making ethic battles less relevant. Peace accords negotiated on Easter Sunday 1998 have taken hold, and while all know that the "troubles" are long-term, there is hope that a tranquil enduring prosperity can be attained. Perhaps a signal has been given out that casino gambling can exist without fear of surrounding violence in both the north and south of Ireland.

5. No Need to Defend Borders from Neighboring Casinos

High among the list of reasons promoters use to win the legalization of casino gambling in new venues is the cry that neighboring venues have casinos and are taking "our" money away from us. The story has been told throughout Europe. Italy authorized casinos so that money would not go across the border to Monaco. The Netherlands legalized casinos to keep money from going to Germany, Belgium and France. Luxembourg also authorized a casino to keep local players from leaving for those places. France permitted casino slot machines because Germany had slot machines. Voters in Switzerland finally consented to casinos because the nation had become surrounded by casinos in Italy, France, Germany and Austria, all of which looked at the Swiss as a primary market for players.

Ireland was not driven to accept casinos because the Republic of Ireland has no casinos on its borders — it is an island nation. Its sole land border is with Northern Ireland, and that venue has no casinos. Moreover, the Irish people have endured economic hardships precluding casual recreational travel to other lands the have casinos. Mediterranean beaches filled with Germans and English have, until recent years, been devoid of a major Irish presence. Moreover, the close-by foreign casinos of Scotland, Wales and provincial England have typically been very small facilities that cater to locals, not tourists. These casinos have little appeal even for affluent Irish. Additionally, the casinos project an English character not welcoming for many Irish.7

Until the 21st century, Ireland had not felt a strong need to have casinos in order to keep Irish gambling money at home. Now this situation has been altered. Two new factors are in play. First, Internet gambling has invaded Ireland, as it has every other country on the globe. Ireland courts have interpreted laws to forbid Internet betting within Ireland. However, legal authorities do permit offshore service providers to beam their signals into Irish territory, and the Irish are betting on the Internet. Several voices have encouraged Ireland to fully legalize Internet gaming so that providers can exist and be subject to local control and local taxation. Others advocate legalized casinos that can offer games in a controlled social atmosphere.

Additionally, the recent era of affluence has resulted in many more overseas trips for the Irish. These trips abroad are for all kinds of recreational purposes and are likely to include casino gambling forays. The appeals of "let’s bring the gambling dollars home" may now have a resonance they never had before.

6. Political Influence of the Catholic Church in Ireland

In Ireland, the Catholic Church has been influential in dampening efforts to legalize casinos. The power of the church has been a major force in Irish politics for many centuries. In 1935, Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Eamon de Valera spoke to his nation’s relationship with the church: "Since the coming of St. Patrick 1,500 years ago, Ireland has been a Christian and a Catholic nation. All the ruthless attempts made through the centuries to force her from this allegiance have not shaken her faith." Ireland went through what has been called a "devotional revolution" in the late 1840s following the Great Famine, as the population embraced Roman rituals as never before, and levels of attendance at weekly mass approached 100 percent for Catholics.8

The church’s influence on the people was founded in part in the large number of clerics vis-á-vis laity. This was a result of economic pressures that propelled masses that had no other viable options, save emigration to seek out religious vocations. Common folk now had many priests and nuns available to observe their daily trifles and to warn them to stay on the proclaimed path toward righteousness.

In the first decade of the 20th century, one major writer stated: "in no other country … is religion so dominant an element in the daily life of the people as in Ireland."9 Catholicism, with its many rituals, had become "a way to be Irish," which set the people apart from all others in the British Isles. The Catholic faith became linked with national feeling.10

With independence in 1921, "political Catholicism in Ireland emerged victorious, and Catholic values were very effectively enshrined in the political system." When Eamon de Valera’s Fianna Fail government came to power in 1933, it was a movement "zealous in its efforts to ensure that Catholic morality should be enforced by legislation."11

Most often the church did not have to make its positions clear in policy debates. Church views were not openly challenged, as political leaders accepted the censorship of books and films. The members of both major parties of the Dail (the national parliament) did the bidding of the church unasked.

Things began to change as Ireland dropped its economic isolation policies and joined the European Union. Europe and the world came knocking at the door, and with the knocking came a secular world. The influence of the Catholic Church in Ireland cannot be as effective a political force now as it was over the past century. The numbers of clergy have been reduced considerably in recent decades. They no longer have a direct presence in the people’s daily activity. Attendance at weekly mass is still high relative to the rest of Europe, but attendance numbers have fallen to about half the population.12

7. Competitive Venues Wishing to Suppress Casinos: Gaming and Non-Gaming

The Irish public has been served by several entertainment venues whose existence could be compromised by the legalization of casino facilities. Two interests actively led policy makers to shy away from legalizing casinos: the Irish public house (or pub) and the betting shop.

There are 11,000 pubs in Ireland (three times the number per capita than in England). The pubs are privately owned and, unlike those in England, are not owned by the major brewery companies. Many have been in the same families for generations.13 Pubs have been attacked, as has the consumption of alcohol, for scores of years, yet they have persisted.

Until very recently, government efforts to limit drinking — especially drinking at pubs — were doomed. However, the influence of the pub as a cultural icon has suffered a bit with a national prosperity that finds people going to off-premise stores and taking alcoholic beverages to their now larger homes, where friends and guests gather for entertainment. Pubs have also lost patronage in the 21st century, as laws now ban smoking in public places and give offenders zero tolerance for drinking and operating a motor vehicle. Recent years have also seen a reduction in the number of pubs.14

Betting shops did not emerge as places for social and financial activity until laws provided for off-track betting in 1926. Prior to that time, betting on horse races and other events was banned in places other than tracks. There are now an estimated 1,100 licensed betting shops in Ireland and, unlike the pubs, they are growing in numbers. Moreover, many of the shops are owned by major companies. In the past, their voices were likely to negative in regard to casinos. The future offers quite a different situation. The industry certainly has some companies that have few shops and would feel the competition of casinos. However, the bigger players in the industry, such as Paddy Power, Ladbrokes and Chronicle (which shares a facility with the Sporting Emporium Casino Club in Dublin), are not at all opposed to casinos. Indeed, they want to have casinos legalized so that they may participate in casino gaming by owning and operating the casinos.15

The Stage for Casinos is Set

The stage is set, the atmosphere for legalization is right, and proposals for casinos are being made.

A gauntlet had been placed in the sand when Minister of Justice Michael McDowell announced his intention to close casinos in 2006. Casinos responded. Many formed an association, the Gaming and Leisure Association of Ireland (GLAI), and exerted pressure on the government to repudiate the stand taken by McDowell.16 McDowell caved in a very short time and joined others in creating a task force to examine casino policy. In the meantime, he vowed he would not take action. He lost his position as well as his seat in the Dail in a new election. He has been replaced by Brian Lenihan. The task force gave its report to Lenihan in late 2007.17

The first item on the GLAI’s agenda is to offer the government suggested legislation that would legalize casinos.

The association wants legal casinos to emphasize their social aspects by strictly limiting the numbers of machines allowed to three machines per table game. It did not want to endorse high-stakes slot clubs. It did not want the government to become financially dependent on casino tax revenues, so it proposed that the casino tax (in addition to normal business taxes) would only be 1 percent of casino revenues, the same tax rate paid on wagers at the betting shops. It recommended that the value-added tax not be applied to casino wagering.18

The GLAI proposal indicated that all matters pertaining to betting limits and hours of play be left up to each casino, and that all personnel involved in gaming be licensed by the government following receipt of a certificate of personal fitness from the Garda Siochana (police). Providers of equipment for gaming would also be regulated. The GLAI wished to have no separate commission for regulation, but rather to use existing ministries to govern the gaming affairs. The gaming age was to be 18 years old.19

The GLAI also felt that a new law should have provisions governing Internet gaming so that Irish players would not be required to patronize untaxed and unregulated offshore providers. However, one of the GLAI’s supporters dissented. J.J. Woods believes that legalization is necessary to meet competition from Internet gaming. "I think Internet gambling is dangerous because if you’ve got isolated gambling, it’s secretive gambling, and people can do it in their back office, or even at work. It’s just too easy. I think that’s wrong. … If people want to gamble, they should leave the family home and go out among other people."20

The number casinos would not be limited, but the licensing authority would consider market conditions and locations that would avoid residential areas and also be attractive for tourist gamblers. The casinos would be limited in size to 15,000 square feet, with less than half that space for gaming activities. The casinos would be free-standing, unattached to hotels and without amenities.21

Casino licenses would be granted for a one-year probationary period, and after that they would be effective forever. European Union money laundering rules would be followed by the casinos. This is a strong argument for legislation, as the rules now have no effect on casino club activity.22

The GLAI has a code of practice it also incorporates into its proposal. The code calls for financial transparency, video surveillance, and recording of all names and accounts of players. No credit would be given by the casino, and players could only use a single credit card for funds to play.23 The casinos would publicize the dangers of gambling addictions, and they would maintain and enforce a registry for voluntary exclusion of players, in addition to intervening when players show signs of addiction.

During the last week of 2007, Lenihan recommended that new legislation be passed that reflects the desires of the task force. The legislation, which has to wind its way through the Dail, would meet some of the desires of the industry, but not all of them. It would create a gaming commission to license and regulate the casinos. Casinos could be licensed if they demonstrated solvency as well as having detailed security systems. Moreover, the horse tracks would be allowed to have licenses. Lenihan indicated that of all existing clubs, only the Sporting Emporium currently met the standards for licensing.24

Is the Time Right for Irish Casinos?

The political landscape of Ireland has been cleared of serious opposition to casino gambling. Forces of inertia remain, and advocates of casinos must still be careful as they design their policy initiatives so that they do not excite a latent opposition that always lurks to defend any "status quo" situation. It is appropriate to move seriously and openly and with all due deliberate speed toward proposals for casinos that may be put forth for consideration by the cabinet, executive and then the Dail.

1. Interview with Michael Walsh, Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Dublin, Oct. 5, 2007.
2. E.g., see: Sean Dorgan. How Ireland Became the Celtic Tiger. The Heritage Foundation. June 23, 2006. http://www.heritage.org/research/worldwidefreedom/bg1945.cfm; Coakley and Gallagher, above, note 37, p. 483.
3. Neil Collins and Mary O’Shea. 2000. Understanding Corruption in Irish Politics. Cork; Cork Univ. Press. P. 60; see also Deirdre Hennessy. 2004. "A Study of Political Corruption in Twentieth Century Ireland." B.A. Dissertation, Department of History, University College, Cork.
4. Interview with J.J. Woods, Director of Operations, Atlantic Casino Consultants, at Clontarf Castle, Dublin, Oct. 6, 2007, and Oct. 20, 2007.
5. Colin Maynard. Audit by SAIs of EU Funds. http://72.14.253.104.Search?q=cache:kre5Wv8XMIMJ:www.nku.ez/seminars/eurosai-pr
6. Author visited casino Jan. 10, 1987.
7. Rick Steves and Pat O’Connor, Rick Steves’ Ireland 2007. Emeryville CA: Avalon Travel Publ., pp. 372—373.
8. John Coakley and Michael Gallagher. 2005 (4th ed.). Politics in the Republic of Ireland. London: Routledge, p. 45.
9. Horace Plunkett. 1905. Ireland in the New Century. London: John Murray, p. 94; cited in Brown, above, note 73, p. 26.
10. John Coakley and Michael Gallagher. 2005 (4th ed.). Politics in the Republic of Ireland. London: Routledge, pp. 24–25, 45.
11. Terrance Brown. 2004. Ireland: A Social and Cultural History 1922 to the Present. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, p. 116.
12. Coakley and Gallagher, above, note 10, pp. 46–47.
13. BBC News May 6, 2007. Changing habits threaten Irish country pubs. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6625687.stm?Is; http: // www.irelandlogue.com/pubs
14. E.g. http://historyofalcoholanddrugs.typepad.com/
    alcohol_and_drugs_history/Ireland/index.html.
15. Merrion-Landsbanki. October 30, 2007. Paddy Power Company Update, p.12.
16. Interview with David Hinkson, Marketing Director, The Fitzwilliam Casino and Club, Clifton Hall, Dublin, Oct. 4, 2007; and Report of the Gaming and Leisure Association of Ireland (GLAI-0907-001-LCC). 2007.
17. Interview Hinkson, above, note 16; and interview with J.J.Woods, Director of Operations, Atlantic Casino Consultants, at Clontarf Castle, Dublin, Oct. 6, 2007, and Oct. 20, 2007.
18. GLAI, above, note 16.
19. GLAI, above, note 16.
20. Interview with Woods, above, note 17; and Tom McEnaney, "New Casino Takes a Gamble on Irish Law," The Sunday Times (London), Oct. 26, 2003; and Clair Ryan , "The Other National Vice," Sunday Independent LIFE (Dublin), March 6, 2005, pp. 23–25.
21. GLAI, above, note 16.
22. GLAI, above, note 16.
23. Code of Practice of the GLAI. 2007.
24. Niamh Doohan. Lenihan set to regulate rather than ban casinos. Independent i.e. (national news), Dec. 30, 2007.