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GAMBLING GOA
By Valmiki Faleiro
Leave alone the current row over the ‘definition’ of offshore casino. Everybody
knows
what it connotes, as much as everybody ought to know that in Pratapsing Rane’s
Goa,
when onshore slot machines were first licenced, they were palmed off as "games
of skill"
(as in aiming darts at bull’s-eye, or a kiddie’s game of marbles.) Not "games
of chance"
(as in your local ‘godgoddo’ or ‘motko.’)
And that ‘offshore’ meant at, and in, the Mandovi riverbank and estuary, where
the
‘Caravela’ docks and sails. Splendid games with the English vocab, which turn
only
fiercer when laced with a dash of post-election politics.
As responsible Goans, we have slept long, over the larger issues of high profile
gambling. As long, surely, as our otherwise ultra-sensitive Freedom Fighters who
haven’t awakened to the fact that it was a ‘Caravela’ that brought in the
much-loathed
Afonso de Albuquerque in 1510. Else, they should have staged a "Boarding Party"
and
mined Goa’s first floating casino, or at least smashed its nameplate and
affixed another
reflecting some nationalistic flavour.
Seriously, if we are serious about promoting ‘Family Tourism’ in high-end
markets
overseas, as Government swears it is, how do casinos -- offshore, riverine or
onshore --
fit in? If you were going to Macau -- or for that matter, Bangkok -- for just
one purpose,
which is not sightseeing, would you take your wife and kids along? What kind of
a brand
image are we developing for Goa? What manner of ‘Family Tourism’ would a place
attract that reengineers its reputation as a fine destination for world-class
casinos, bar
girls and paedophilia?
Some argue there’s nothing wrong with casinos when gambling is otherwise
rampant,
licenced or otherwise. Casinos, at least, earn revenue. Others point out that
drugs and
prostitution, if licenced, will also fetch revenue. One also wonders why no
tourist state,
from Kashmir to Kerala, has allowed casinos. (And if gambling sanctified in
casinos is
okay, why chase poor ‘motko’ bookies instead of licensing their trade?)
Is government not slanted towards big hoteliers and casino operators? With
piecemeal
approach to tourism, where policy is dictated on case-to-case basis, on the
potential of
bribe, pray, who is gambling -- and gambling what away? Politicos ‘encashing’
election
victories, or those trying to get even for their defeats? Casino investors
cashing in on
short-term opportunity? Or Goans themselves, wagering away the potential for a
clean,
longer-lasting tourism industry? I’ll leave that there.
Goans are gamblers. That’s another of our national traits. Fuelled, no doubt,
by our
gullibility and belief that some things in life come free, or almost free. Like
Dame Luck.
‘Godgoddo’ and ‘Motko’ may not have the potential to ruin Goa as a tourist
destination,
but have surely ruined breadwinners, and families. The power of vice is
unbeatable,
particularly in gambling.
Nobody seems to realise that the player in the end never wins, and the operator
always
does. Success, whether by ‘godgoddo’ or ‘motko’ is, without exception, an
illusion. The
man who conducts the operation is always ‘up,’ the player who falls sucker is
always, in
varying degrees, down.
Consider a classic. A European gambling racketeer (they all are!) e-mails
20,000 football
fans at the start of a season. He claims to have developed a computer program
based
on mathematical theories of probability that accurately predicts the winner of
a match.
He promises the football-gambling aficionados the winning tips provided they
agree to
double the bet every time they win, and share just five percent of the winnings
with him.
Fair, the gamblers think.
At match One, he advises half his target audience to wager on Team A. The other
10,000 are told to play Team B. He drops the losers, and at match Two, advises
half of
the remaining to hedge one team, the other 5,000 on the other team. The losers
are
ignored. Half the winners are told to bet on one team at the next game ... and
so it goes.
By the end of season, our hero is a millionaire, none of the suckers any the
wiser!
BAN OR LEGALIZE ‘MOTKO’? Home Minister Ravi Naik, long regarded leader of the
‘Bahujan Samaj,’ is said to have ordered Goa Police to crack down on ‘motko,’
the old
cotton stock figures game reinvented by Ratan Khatri in the early 1970s.
‘Motko’ was
allowed to thrive in Goa. Today, it employs thousands, many from the ‘Bahujan
Samaj.’
Almost every policeman and some brother politicos depend on ‘motko’ monthly
packs.
So, is Ravi bent on political suicide, or is there something better than meets
the eye?
(ENDS)
The Valmiki Faleiro weekly column at:
http://www.goanet.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=330
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The above article appeared in the September 23, 2007 edition of the Herald, Goa
