Although casinos exist in a legal grey area, there is a huge appetite for them in Ireland, writes Kathy Sheridan. The betting industry has been buzzing with the news for months now.
Planning applications have been lodged for a betting shop and private members' club at Anne's Lane (off South Anne Street) in the heart of Dublin city, in the name of Justin Carthy and Albert Sharpe, shareholder and associate respectively of Chronicle Bookmakers - a business which is half-owned by Dermot Desmond.
This raises legitimate questions. Do Desmond and his co-owners intend to run a high-rollers' casino from this private members' club, as is widely speculated?
The one-line response from Desmond's office is terse: "Dermot doesn't make any comment about anything."
Eh, not strictly true, remember the time when . . .? "Dermot doesn't make any comment about anything," she interrupts, in a tone some might construe as grim verging on hostile. End of discussion.
Which is a shame, firstly because an informed source confirms that the "private members' club" will be "a sporting emporium" to include card games and gambling, and secondly because the mere rumour of involvement of a canny, billionaire, friend-of-the-powerful, such as Dermot Desmond, in a wholly unregulated, legally unclear yet burgeoning sector of the Irish gambling scene, would be bound to resurrect some intriguing old controversies.
As the 1956 Gaming and Lotteries Act stands, casinos are illegal in Ireland. Gaming is illegal in Ireland. Games "where all players are not equal are specifically prohibited", ie casino-type games such as roulette and blackjack. There is no provision for them to be licensed. In theory it should not, therefore, be possible to walk in off an Irish street and have a flutter on blackjack or roulette tables. In practice, it happens all night, every night, 365 nights a year - and not just among the urbane, high-rolling gents who fancy a night among equals at the "Casino Royale" of Anne's Lane.
Casinos exist in Ireland because operators can circumvent the 1956 Gaming and Lotteries Act simply by applying for planning permission for a private members' club. This works, in law, because "members" are presumed to be betting between themselves.
"There is no statutory provision which says it is, however, legal on that basis," says Tom Heerey, a legal expert at A&L Goodbody Solicitors. "It is only an interpretation of what is not illegal."
The casino visit has become a routine fixture in the social perambulations of huge numbers of young students and workers when the late bars close at around 2.30am - a phenomenon which came to public attention during the Anabel's manslaughter case, when it emerged that a 19-year-old accused had gone on to a casino and was still there at 7am.
"If you want to continue the night," says one student, "the choice is between the clubs on Leeson Street - with wine from €35 a bottle - or the casino. Okay, it might be because all you have is a fiver and at the casino you might get to double that - but really it's often about just being drunk and not wanting the night to end at 2.30am in a seedy basement drinking over-priced plonk."
So, while casinos are illegal under Irish law, many are remarkably accessible to impromptu visitors who, according to one operator, can "drop" between €20 and €1,000 a night (and much more if poker is their game).
"We're all working in a grey area", says JJ Woods, who runs Silks, a comfortable, traditional, Mayfair-style casino run from a lovely Georgian house on Earlsfort Terrace in Dublin. Woods, a 45-year-old Irishman who prides himself on running a tight ship and has launched casinos all over the world, makes no secret of his bemusement at the absence of, or even an attempt at, gambling regulation in Ireland.
BECAUSE PRIVATE MEMBERS' clubs- cum-casinos are such a legally grey area, it might be assumed that certain, basic rules are adhered to even more strictly.
For example, properly constituted private clubs - particularly those where serious money changes hands and trust is paramount - must make certain basic demands of aspirant members. They must apply formally, assume a waiting period for approval, receive notice of and agree to certain terms and conditions and co-operate with a stringent admissions policy.
Can it be possible that these motley crowds of young people wandering around in the early hours are all "members" of a private members' club? It depends on how you interpret the word "member" in the Irish scenario.
This week Brian, a 20-year-old armed with a friend's membership card (which features no name or photo, only a number) and an 18-year-old companion with none, turned up at a prominent casino. Brian produced the membership card and gave his friend's name. The 18-year-old declared that she was not a member. No ID or information was requested of either, other than the 18-year-old's first name. Both were admitted immediately.
Later a staff member noted genially that the name given by Brian didn't match the number on the card - but only as a point of information. (For the record, the two of them spent around 30 minutes playing blackjack with €50 worth of chips, were winning €80 until the dealers changed after 10 minutes and then wound up with a total of €25.)
Last week, two 19-year-olds turned up at another private members' club. Although they could produce no ID, they were admitted immediately as "guests".
Half a dozen students - including a Mexican girl who looks about 12 years old - on the way home from a club one night, decided to try to gain admission to a private members' club. Asked whether they had membership cards or ID, they answered no and turned to leave. But in the two minutes it took to discuss alternatives, the Mexican girl (with no ID and an address at Coatzocoalcos) had had her picture taken, her membership card spat out by a machine (situated conveniently in the hall) and was being directed into the club. Result: instant membership for all - at 3am - plus €10 worth of free chips to play with.
Two years ago, Fine Gael's finance spokesman, Richard Bruton, asked questions in the Dáil about the legality of casinos in Dublin. Minister for Justice Michael McDowell replied: "These establishments operate as clubs for the exclusive use of private members and are not open to the public. Legal advice indicates that such clubs are not subject to the provisions of the Gaming and Lotteries Act 1956."
This means they are subject to no formal register, licensing procedure, court certification, monitoring or inspection. Anyone - including people with criminal records - may set up a casino as a private members' club. The only requirement is planning permission for a private members' club.
Contrast this with the scrutiny applied to applicants for a betting shop licence, who must apply to the court, register with the Garda, identify the premises, be assessed as suitable and, having obtained a court certificate, work within a tightly monitored, well-established system of regulation, then pay 3 per cent tax on their turnover.
A private members' club is taxed only on its profits - an interesting notion, bearing in mind that cash is the currency and no dockets are given.
THE PRIVATE MEMBERS' club-cum-casino is not new in Ireland but it has, unsurprisingly, hit a growth spurt. Two years ago, when asked about the number of casinos in the capital, McDowell replied that the Garda was "aware of five establishments in the Dublin area that operate activities similar to those of casinos: one in the north inner city and four in the south inner city".
Now there are probably at least a dozen in and around the capital (including one about 50 yards from Government Buildings), and casino culture is spreading across the country to cities and towns including Mullingar, Navan, Cork, Galway and Limerick. Operators have become increasingly visible and emboldened, emerging from a twilight existence to splash their presence with street awnings, external signs and business cards.
"If things continue like this," says Woods, "you're going to see a casino in every basement in town." He predicts that there will be 20 in Dublin alone by Christmas. Woods knowshis business. He launched the first casino in Moscow after glasnost.
"When I left, a few years later, there were 130. Two years after that, there were 237. Now it's down to 35. Why? Regularisation."
Woods - who opens another club, Shangri La, in Cork this weekend - has no wish to fly the flag for the industry here, as he puts it, but he is a passionate advocate of legislation and regulation and would be very anxious, for example, to see the admission age raised to 21.
"I am delighted to see Dermot Desmond coming into the market. Maybe with someone of his stature involved, it will help to move things forward."
While many would take issue with Woods's view of casinos as a healthy "social engagement" and an "interesting alternative" to the pub, he argues that we live in a culture already permeated by gambling, much of it Government-sponsored, licensed or enabled, such as in lotteries, scratch cards, telly bingo and poker marathons. And the "social engagement" of a casino, he adds, surely trumps the destructive secrecy of online betting whereby (according to one - possibly apocryphal - story) a man can leave the marital bed in the early hours, go downstairs to his computer and lose a month's salary in 20 minutes.
While we talk on the smoking deck at Silks, a tourist from Michigan interrupts to ask where the slot machines are.
"You won't get them in places like this," says another customer, who directs the baffled-looking American to Westmoreland Street: "where you'll find all the slot machines you could ever want". Well over 100 of them, in fact, in Amusement City that operates a casino as a private members' club. The name, Amusement City - "owned and operated by the same family since 1974" according to a website - will jog the memories of planning tribunal watchers.
The slot machines in Amusement City are licensed for "amusement only". According to the 1956 Gaming and Lotteries Act, the legal maximum stake and prize from these machines are 2.5p and 50p respectively. In Amusement City, €1 coins are exchanged for tokens of equal value and these are played for "credits". While the system allows 50 "credits" to a €1 token bet (ie 50 bets to the euro, therefore remaining strictly within the law), in practice much of the betting is done in multiples of 50 (ie €1 a time) simply by pressing the "bet" button value up to 50 and leaving it there.
On one night last week, as many as half a dozen clearly tense players (overwhelmingly Asian or eastern European) were toting 100-token trays around, frantically feeding one or more machines simultaneously, while jabbing the "bet" button. Apart from the token/credit system, the only difference between these and conventional slot machines is that wins of more than 400 "credits" (equal to €8) must be claimed at the desk.
According to a staff member, it is possible to win up to €700 on a single 50-credit bet at the slots and €3,000 on the touch-screen roulette tables.
The admissions policy here is no better or worse than many of its uptown counterparts. A bunch of students with no ID gained immediate admission as "guests" last week. The night this reporter visited, I was told that membership was required but was allowed to enter as a "guest" once I signed in.
Everyone agrees the 50-year-old Gaming and Lotteries Act is hopelessly out-dated and that the law is an ass in this area. In any event, technology is rendering much of it obsolete and even licensed betting shops are offering casino-type "numbers" games, such as betting on lottery numbers - or "Lucky Numbers" as they call them.
When an interdepartmental group appointed to review the Act produced its report in 2000, it had much to say about the potential damage caused by slot machines, stating that it was "aware of reports of alleged illegal gaming in some premises in Dublin city centre, possibly operated in conjunction with token or credit systems", that statutory limits were not being observed and that machines were being operated in licensed and unlicensed premises. It recommended that the maximum stake and prize be raised to 50 cent and €20 respectively and that the maximum amount of "credits" allowed at any one time should be no greater than the maximum stake.
However, the group hardly scratched the surface regarding casinos, stating that the subject didn't really fall within its remit. The feeling was that the issue had already been settled following the 1996 task force report on casinos. This was an upshot of the massive controversy surrounding the application for a hotel and sports stadium complex at the former Phoenix Park racecourse, of which a pivotal element was a proposed casino, intended to be the largest in Europe with more than 500 slot machines.
Although approved by An Bord Pleanála (swayed by arguments in favour of its "macro-economic impact" in the face of an unprecedented 20,000 objections), the refusal of the "rainbow coalition" government to license the casino, which comprised only 6 per cent of the complex but was described as its "financial engine", killed off the entire proposal. The review group in 2000 reached the same conclusion as the task force: that "the ban on casino-type gaming should be retained in the new legislation".
Two years ago, the Minister for Justice confirmed in the Dáil that there were no proposals "to amend the law in this specific matter".
How this squares with developments on the ground is another matter.
Sources with insight into Government thinking put the inaction down to fear. "The politicians are terrified of touching the whole gambling area . . . of being seen to do anything to liberalise gambling. What they're really terrified of is the 'moral-panic-who-will-think-of-the-children?' branch of journalism. See what happened when Tony Blair announced plans to liberalise before the UK elections?"
Another source believes there are sensitivities regarding such bodies as Horse Racing Ireland (HRI), who could be affected by any new competition for gamblers' money. Brian Kavanagh of HRI sounds sanguine, however, noting that traditional forms of gambling are already meeting significant new challenges and turnover continues to rise. Well over €2 billion was bet in betting shops last year.
While objectors to casinos can draw on a wealth of information from around the world to bolster their views, history also makes it clear that unregulated casinos can be time-bombs: open opportunities for criminal involvement and money laundering.
It is five years since John O'Donoghue, then minister for justice, told the Dáil that the government had "approved the recommendations of the interdepartmental group", noting that "one of the group's recommendations is for the establishment of a statutory gaming and lotteries authority with direct responsibility for overall regulation of gaming and lotteries in Ireland".
Though the word is that a review of the "whole area" is being carried out, a department spokesman will say only that it is "included in the Government's legislative programme" - ie it is certainly not a priority.
Meanwhile, the European Commission has undertaken a major study of national law across the EU, due to be completed in late summer, which may eventually lead to EU-wide standards.
As one industry expert put it this week: "You could say things are stirring . . . But it's a slow stirring rather than a wok".