Audrey Marks, CEO of Paymaster Jamaica, says casinos are inevitable. - File

Casino gambling in Jamaica is an 'inevitable development', and could be a source of growth for the country, once those who cower from it as a moral hazard get over their fear, a top Kingston businesswoman has suggested.

Audrey Marks, chief executive officer of bill payment company Paymaster Limited, on Tuesday named the gaming industry and 'the emerging currency trading financial sector' otherwise known a investment schemes - both controversial - as sectors that Jamaica can tap for big resources.

"I would like to suggest that there is now almost an inevitability about casino gambling in Jamaica," said Marks.

"We already have a form existing in hotels and gaming lounges. It surely is not beyond us as a people to put infrastructure in place, which would minimise the deleterious effects of casino gambling, while maximising its benefits," she said, addressing a function at the University College of the Caribbean.

Marks, who is also president of the American Chamber of Commerce, argues that Jamaica's chief concern must be the education of its people, and that the challenge to policymakers was to harness the resources to get it done.

The currency trading operations, she said, had demonstrated the capacity to mobilise large savings in a short period, and were potentially "positive contributors" to the economy.

Fighting losing battle

A study by think tank CaPRI estimates that the schemes command resources of J$100 billion to $200 billion.

The Financial Services Commission, with little knowledge of the schemes and how they sustain the high returns of 10 to 18 per cent per month they quote, has been fighting - so far - a losing battle to have the 23 known firms register their operations.

The FSC, in the absence of voluntary compliance, has taken to warning investors about the dangers of committing funds to firms whose operations are cloaked.

For Marks, that approach is a signal of a regulatory regime that has been caught napping, and suggests a need for education of the media and regulators on the workings of the currency trading market and its parameters.

She suggests the authorities should instead be making attempts to embrace the schemes; then tax them to harness some of the resources they have so easily been able to command.

"What has to be done is to regulate with a view to ensure transparency and in as much as is possible financial probity, but not to stifle creativity and entrepreneurship," said the Paymaster CEO.

"Further, with adequate regulation withholding tax of major significance could be obtained to meet some of our educational and social needs."

Old quarrel

Gaming, she noted, had similar revenue potential.

But the casino debate, revolving around its legalisation, is an old quarrel that for years has been won by its opposers, mainly the Church, largely on grounds that the gambling houses had the potential to corrupt the society.

The Bruce Golding administration has placed the issue under review, re-igniting the camps and the old arguments.

The administration has signalled that it would likely uphold a 2006 commitment by the previous government to an investor, which Financial Gleaner sources say relates to a project in Montego Bay.

Marks, who held up casinos as a potential source of financing for education reform, which has a $52 billion annual price tag, points out that other countries are scoring billions in casino investments without their countries falling apart.

"Last week, we saw where the Bahamas has just garnered another massive investment from top hospitality developer Harrah's and Starwood to the tune of US$2.6 billion; and the last time I checked people were still having a good, safe standard of living in The Bahamas," she said.

"What are we afraid of?"

The use of gaming revenues to fund education is not a new suggestion.

Taps sales

The Government already taps lottery sales to finance health, education and social programmes under the $800 million CHASE Fund which is financed from lottery sales.

Marks suggested that one way to manage entrants to the casino sector was to peg licences to big investments in tourism - whether hotel/ accommodation or attraction.

"The revenue derived from there could be another way to finance the education transformation that is needed, and for which both Government and Opposition agree that the financial resources do not exist to tackle at present," she said.

business@gleanerjm.com