Developers say casino will not admit protest

THE poorest sections of society,will not be admitted to the controversial casino planned for the Phoenix Park Racecourse, in Dublin, the developers have told The Irish Times. Instead, they expects the bulk of its patrons will be high spending tourists.

Mr Norman Turner, director of Sonas Centre Ltd, said his "gut feeling" was that up to 70 per cent of the patrons would be tourists coming to Ireland, not just to avail of the casino but also to go racing, play golf go to the theatre and enjoy Dublin's night life.

Responding to cars expressed by opponents of the scheme that the casino will tempt the poor to gamble, he said it was "patently obvious that this is not an environment where people are allowed to get in if they were inclined to get in with welfare cheques".

Mr Turner's reply to accusations that Sonas would be trying to attract the poorest, to tempt them to gamble, was blunt. "First of all, it's not an environment which they ,would be allowed to enter. Secondly, the schools of management at Sheraton can identify that type of customer.

"I don't want to get into social stratification, because it's a dangerous area, but I think they're expert enough to detect people who can afford to gamble and those who can't. And we hope it attracts those Irish people who can afford to go racing, to gamble anywhere they want and afford it.

"In exactly the same way as you wouldn't expect Michael Governey to allow guys to walk into the Conrad Hotel from a demolition site and start parading around, I hope in our own subtle way that we'll be able to enforce as a minimum standard the type of dress code you would associate with a five star hotel."

In their first interview since An Bord Pleanala granted planning permission for the £400 million project - which includes a luxury hotel, national conference centre, casino, stadium and indoor arena, the developers said the entire scheme would be marketed as a destination in its own right.

They also reiterated that the casino, for which new legislation is required, would contain "less than 500" gaming machines, not all of which would be the proverbial "one armed bandits", and they would occupy only 15 per cent of the casino's floor area. The rest of it would be gaming tables.

The casino would be in the basement of a five star Sheraton Hotel and its floor area of almost 80,000 square feet would make it one of the largest in Europe. The remainder of the basement, amounting to more than 250,000 square, feet, would be a hotel shopping mall with restaurants and boutiques.

Mr Turner, who is both a director and major shareholder in Sonas Centre Ltd, said the research indicated the majority of the casinos turnover would be "tourist driven".

Much of it would be built up from ITT Sheraton's worldwide gaming clientele, who were always looking for new places to go.

"Most people today expect this type of facility as part of the tourism infrastructure of a modern country, and Dublin is the only capital city in Europe that hasn't got gaming," he said. "We see it as an alternative form of indoor entertainment, which is not designed to take the last pound out of anybody's pocket.

"And what we're talking about here is a facility which would be run under strict controls.

"We're talking about severe penalties. You don't have to understand the gaming industry in depth to know that if someone is spending several hundred million pounds on something, they're not going to allow that investment to be threatened by breaches of the law. And Sheraton's own self regulation, or policing, is ferocious."

Mr Turner dismissed claims' that a casino on the Phoenix Park Racecourse site would lead to a proliferation of drugs and prostitution in the area. "We actually believe that there should be a permanent Government compliance officer fully present all the, time watching what happens, as they do in America," he said.

"So that if you wanted to go out with your wife on a Friday evening to have a jar or a meal, you could go to a place like this and feel very safe. You are not expected to go there specifically to gamble."

Mr Robert White, the Irish director of Sonas Centre Ltd, commented that there was "nothing new" about gambling in Ireland. "There are bookie shops and Lotto shops in practically every street in every city and town in Ireland. And the controls we're talking about for the casino don't exist for almost any other area."

Mr Turner added: "We haven't yet had an opportunity to make a presentation to the Government on the licensing issue.We did not want to waste the time of officials or elected members before we got the planning decision.

However, it seems unlikely the Government will agree to license casino gambling, particularly in the run up to a general election. Several Ministers are on record as opposing such a move. But what the Phoenix Park Racecourse developers are banking on is that the next government will take a different view.