India Times – This Diwali, expect fireworks ‘across the board’, literally. As the well-heeled and the not-so-well-heeled travel overseas, gambling is emerging as a major passion and casino destinations, the big draw. Even in their backyard, while some still indulge in the roll of the dice surreptitiously, new vistas of wager are opening up under state patronage across Goa, Sikkim and Daman.
In India, the business of casinos alone accounts for Rs 500 crore in revenues, says Jaydev Mody, chairman of Delta Corp Ltd, the biggest organised casino operator in this neck of the woods, with three offshore casinos and two hotels in Goa and a planned casino and hotel in Daman. Mody would know since his company recently conducted a study to gauge why airfares to Goa go through the roof.
“We discovered that airfares were being driven up by people who specifically come to Goa to gamble, since around 30% of the fliers to Goa are gamblers,” says Mody. While Goa, Sikkim and Daman are the only zones where gambling is allowed country wide, Goa accounts for 95% of the pie as the state government rakes up Rs 100 crore in taxes.
And overall, the casino market is growing at 40% each year for the past five years. When business opened up in 2001, Goa had just one ship, The Caravella, with 14 tables. But today, there are five ships with as many as 250 tables where one can play. Besides, there is the onshore business where hotels come attached with casinos, which dish out electronic board games, since The Gambling Act does not permit casinos on land to provide live games.
With changing regulation, expect more traffic. But somewhere, it rankles. Mody calls the India casino mart a mass market play since he witnesses several hundreds of people each day with small-ticket wagers, of say, Rs 8,000-10,000 per head. That’s not even a drop in the ocean compared with the millions of dollars high rollers play with abroad.
