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[h=2]Tales from a cab driver: How casinos are destroying Singaporeans[/h]
June 1st, 2012 |
Author: Contributions
Marina Bay and big part of Sentosa are reclaimed lands of Singapore. We should applaud our founding PAP leaders (eg Goh Keng Swee and Toh Chin Chye) for having the vision and Singaporeans’ interests at heart to embark on the land reclamation program, knowing that with the increase in population and progress in development, Singapore will inevitably need more land.
Billions and billions of Singaporean taxpayers’ money were invested in the land reclamation. Our founding leaders must have had in the their minds and plans to earmark all these heavily capital invested lands to be used for more productive and wholesome purposes for the benefits of all Singaporeans, their children and the children of their children.
But today, we see two casinos occupying these reclaimed land. Our MM Lee Kuan Yew proclaimed that casinos would only possibly be built in Singapore over his dead body and he is not dead yet but his son and the Ministers have already allowed the foreigners to build two casinos with the intention to build more on these valuable reclaimed lands.
PAP not only has to grant the valuable lands, it also has to further invest huge sum of taxpayers’ money to build the infrastructures like roads, MRT stations , bridges, staff housing , etc and to provide security with our young Singaporeans in blood, sweat and tear as NSF soldiers and police to ensure that the casinos are secured, viable and profitable.
Correct. No doubt, the casinos do generate a few billions of dollars a year for our economy. But who are benefiting from this lucrative vice activity?
Certainly, not the common Singaporeans. The first direct beneficiaries are the two foreign owners of the casinos. They probably reap a few hundred millions a year each. Mind you, according to reports, majority of the casinos’ patrons are still Singaporeans. Therefore, majority of the money that the casinos’ owners put warmly in their owned pockets are probably taken out from the Singaporeans’.
Next is our betraying PAP govt. It has benefited handsomely from the taxation on the casinos’ profit and the entrance fees from the local Singaporeans it has collected. Singaporeans have to pay $100 each to enter the casinos.
However, these revenues collected are not filtered down to be enjoyed by the public. Singapore is totally a non-welfare state. A Singaporean may consistently pay personal tax for the last 30 years, but once he or she is unemployed the next day, he or she will not get a cent from the govt as temporary unemployment benefit.
Our govt is one of the richest in the world now. But nothing is really subsidized by the govt in Singapore, even for the poorest. In fact, for most common Singaporeans except for the Ministers, they have to pay much higher prices for the basic public services like health care, public housing, transportation and total education as compare to their counterparts do in Taiwan, Hong Kong, S Korea or Malaysia.
One of our Ministers paid only $8 for his by-pass heart surgery but a common Singaporean has to pay at least $20 for just an outpatient consultation at the public polyclinic.
Our public services are not only not subsidized by the govt but they are virtually systematically managed and operated to make profit out of the people. As such, the welfare of the people, if any, is all self-providing. The govt provides nothing.
So, how the PAP govt utilizes the nation’s wealth, is everybody’s guess. But from records, we know for sure that the two PAP controlled companies, GIC and Temasek which have acquired most of the nation’s wealth under their assets have lost billions and billions of dollars in their overseas investments.
The casinos may provide jobs but for mostly foreigners. Most jobs in the casinos require you only to stand and serve without really having to use the brain. You may even be forced to call the customers ‘Your Highness’. Casinos are labour-intensive. Therefore, they always offer low paid jobs. There is certainly no long term prospect even if one works for 50 years in the casino. Surely, most Singaporeans will naturally reject such jobs.
Besides, casinos will not bring in any technological-know-how for our country. A casino will still be a casino after another 100 years.
Casinos also cause many social problems for Singapore. I believe the PAP has purposely understated or denied the severity of the social problems caused by gambling. MM Lee had let the cat out of the bag at a recent Japanese conference. He said he would like to see the entrance fee for the casinos increase by five folds, from $100 to $500 for Singaporeans. We can infer from his statement that gambling is now a serious problem and the govt has to do much more to mitigate the problem.
I can also attest to the fact that pathological gamblers are increasing at an alarming rate after the casinos are allowed to operate in Singapore. I am a taxi driver. Although, I don’t drop or pick up pathological gamblers everyday at the casinos, but I do often meet enough of these Singaporeans who have gambling problems or are prepared to divulge their gambling problems to me while they are sitting in my taxi to safely use them as a reliable sample to represent that casino gambling has indeed caused increasing social problems.
I do go to casinos to gamble myself but perhaps only once in a few years if only I have a chance to go to gambling cruise, Macau or Genting. It is only for leisure, may be win or lose a few hundred dollars. But the gambling problems faced and told by my passengers which I am going to relate as follows are really disheartening.
One drizzling night at about 10.00 pm, a 70 year old woman with a swollen eye and a baby grand child in her arms suddenly rushed to my taxi from the HDB void deck and nervously told me to take her to the Sentosa Casino. On the way there, she pleaded me to also help her to find her son who she confirmed was gambling in the casino. She said not matter how, she must find his son immediately. Her daughter-in-law had just assaulted her and threatened to kill herself and the grandchild if her son did not return home by midnight. She said her son who works as a delivery man has often stayed overnight at the casinos since the casinos opened. I told her it was impossible for me to locate her son. I suggested to her to use my mobile phone to call her son first. She said her son seldom answers her calls at these times but she tried anyway and fortunately, the son answered. My phone was on speaker mode and I could hear that as soon as the son recognized that the caller was his mother, he started yelling vulgar words on his mother and said that he had just lost few hundred dollars in the casino and was on the way back home. The woman then shyly asked me to turn back worrying she might not have enough to pay me the taxi fare. Indeed, she was short of few dollars in paying me. I told her not to worry and to please take the time to alight the taxi and go home. The baby needs to sleep.
This time, I was ferrying a 40 years old male home at Hougang from Marina Sand Casino. He was quiet all the way in my taxi until we reached near Hougang. He suddenly tapped my shoulder and said that he had no money at all to pay me because he had lost all the money in the casino. He said he would call his wife to bring down the money when we reached his house. I said no problem. It was about 3 am at that time. We waited for about 10 to 15 minutes for his wife to come down, then I told him to forget about the taxi fare and I had to go. But to my consternation, once he saw his wife who looked much older than him approaching us, he aggressively rushed out of my taxi, then slapped his wife and snatched the money from her. After politely paying me the taxi fare, he slapped his wife again. I just drove my taxi slowly away.
Another woman but this time much younger, about early 30s. It was at Marina Sand Hotel, also about 3 am. The moment she stepped into my taxi she started sobbing. She said uncle could you drive me around. I said you must tell me exactly where you wanted to go. She said never mind, just keep driving to Changi Village. I asked, “are you sure?” She said she needed some fresh air. When we hit the ECP, she suddenly said loudly that all men are beast. I replied softly, may be not all and asked why she was so upset. She started to confess that she divorced one year ago and has custody for her 4 years old son. Her ex-husband had forced her to sell their condo and she was renting a room in a HDB flat to stay with her son. She had some cash after selling the condo. She was depressed after the divorce and started to patronize the casinos with her friends. For the first few weeks, she always felt euphoric because she always won. But later, she began to lose more often and bigger. She had used up all her cash saving and began to borrow from siblings, relatives, friends and finally she had to borrow from the ‘Ah Long’. In fact, she told me she just had a discussion with the Ah Long’s runners at Marina Sand Hotel. The runners directly told her that she could sell her body if she could not repay the debt. I did not know what to say. I am not a psychologist, psychiatrist or social worker to advise her accordingly. I just softly asked her where was her son now. She said it didn’t matter and changed her mind that she wanted to go home at Bedok South.
This was a young man, may be about 26 years, probably just started working in the financial district of Shenton Way. He flagged my taxi at the road along the Marina Sand Casino and asked me to drive him home quickly. It was about 4.30 am already on a weekday. He had to rush back to take a nap, then change and go to work again. He told me he would go to the Marina Sand Casino immediately after work and gamble until 3 to 5 am the next morning and then went to work again, at least 2 or 3 times a week. He said he often lost lately and had almost maximize his credit cards to finance the losses.
I can go on but it will probably bore you.
You will never able to read all these despairing stories in our prostituting state-controlled mass media. I believe they purposely not report them in order not to discredit the gambling industry which the PAP has been supporting. PAP and pro-PAP psychologists, psychiatrists or sociologists may say that gambling is a problem that is self-inflicted. It is certainly not the fault of the govt or casinos. Nobody force you to gamble.
But metaphorically, I would like to ask them a question. If hard drug is legally allowed to be sold in Singapore, will there be more drug addicts. The answer is an obvious YES. It is the same for gambling. If the govt allows more casinos, there will be more gamblers.
The death victims of the recent Ferrari accident saddened PM Lee and DPM Teo. I hope the despaired gambling victims of our two casinos also sadden them. After seeing first hand of some of the gamblers’ problems, I must say I am certainly saddened by the social problems caused by our casinos on our fellow Singaporeans.
Singapore is too small a city nation to have casinos. It is just too convenient for any Singaporean to take a bus, taxi, MRT or drive and within few minutes he or she can start gambling in the casino.
I hope all Singaporeans will join hands with me to reject this evil industry. Let’s boycott going to the casinos. Without local Singaporeans’ patronage, the casinos will wind up in no time.
.
A True-Bred Singaporean
Marina Bay and big part of Sentosa are reclaimed lands of Singapore. We should applaud our founding PAP leaders (eg Goh Keng Swee and Toh Chin Chye) for having the vision and Singaporeans’ interests at heart to embark on the land reclamation program, knowing that with the increase in population and progress in development, Singapore will inevitably need more land.
Billions and billions of Singaporean taxpayers’ money were invested in the land reclamation. Our founding leaders must have had in the their minds and plans to earmark all these heavily capital invested lands to be used for more productive and wholesome purposes for the benefits of all Singaporeans, their children and the children of their children.
But today, we see two casinos occupying these reclaimed land. Our MM Lee Kuan Yew proclaimed that casinos would only possibly be built in Singapore over his dead body and he is not dead yet but his son and the Ministers have already allowed the foreigners to build two casinos with the intention to build more on these valuable reclaimed lands.
PAP not only has to grant the valuable lands, it also has to further invest huge sum of taxpayers’ money to build the infrastructures like roads, MRT stations , bridges, staff housing , etc and to provide security with our young Singaporeans in blood, sweat and tear as NSF soldiers and police to ensure that the casinos are secured, viable and profitable.
Correct. No doubt, the casinos do generate a few billions of dollars a year for our economy. But who are benefiting from this lucrative vice activity?
Certainly, not the common Singaporeans. The first direct beneficiaries are the two foreign owners of the casinos. They probably reap a few hundred millions a year each. Mind you, according to reports, majority of the casinos’ patrons are still Singaporeans. Therefore, majority of the money that the casinos’ owners put warmly in their owned pockets are probably taken out from the Singaporeans’.
Next is our betraying PAP govt. It has benefited handsomely from the taxation on the casinos’ profit and the entrance fees from the local Singaporeans it has collected. Singaporeans have to pay $100 each to enter the casinos.
However, these revenues collected are not filtered down to be enjoyed by the public. Singapore is totally a non-welfare state. A Singaporean may consistently pay personal tax for the last 30 years, but once he or she is unemployed the next day, he or she will not get a cent from the govt as temporary unemployment benefit.
Our govt is one of the richest in the world now. But nothing is really subsidized by the govt in Singapore, even for the poorest. In fact, for most common Singaporeans except for the Ministers, they have to pay much higher prices for the basic public services like health care, public housing, transportation and total education as compare to their counterparts do in Taiwan, Hong Kong, S Korea or Malaysia.
One of our Ministers paid only $8 for his by-pass heart surgery but a common Singaporean has to pay at least $20 for just an outpatient consultation at the public polyclinic.
Our public services are not only not subsidized by the govt but they are virtually systematically managed and operated to make profit out of the people. As such, the welfare of the people, if any, is all self-providing. The govt provides nothing.
So, how the PAP govt utilizes the nation’s wealth, is everybody’s guess. But from records, we know for sure that the two PAP controlled companies, GIC and Temasek which have acquired most of the nation’s wealth under their assets have lost billions and billions of dollars in their overseas investments.
The casinos may provide jobs but for mostly foreigners. Most jobs in the casinos require you only to stand and serve without really having to use the brain. You may even be forced to call the customers ‘Your Highness’. Casinos are labour-intensive. Therefore, they always offer low paid jobs. There is certainly no long term prospect even if one works for 50 years in the casino. Surely, most Singaporeans will naturally reject such jobs.
Besides, casinos will not bring in any technological-know-how for our country. A casino will still be a casino after another 100 years.
Casinos also cause many social problems for Singapore. I believe the PAP has purposely understated or denied the severity of the social problems caused by gambling. MM Lee had let the cat out of the bag at a recent Japanese conference. He said he would like to see the entrance fee for the casinos increase by five folds, from $100 to $500 for Singaporeans. We can infer from his statement that gambling is now a serious problem and the govt has to do much more to mitigate the problem.
I can also attest to the fact that pathological gamblers are increasing at an alarming rate after the casinos are allowed to operate in Singapore. I am a taxi driver. Although, I don’t drop or pick up pathological gamblers everyday at the casinos, but I do often meet enough of these Singaporeans who have gambling problems or are prepared to divulge their gambling problems to me while they are sitting in my taxi to safely use them as a reliable sample to represent that casino gambling has indeed caused increasing social problems.
I do go to casinos to gamble myself but perhaps only once in a few years if only I have a chance to go to gambling cruise, Macau or Genting. It is only for leisure, may be win or lose a few hundred dollars. But the gambling problems faced and told by my passengers which I am going to relate as follows are really disheartening.
One drizzling night at about 10.00 pm, a 70 year old woman with a swollen eye and a baby grand child in her arms suddenly rushed to my taxi from the HDB void deck and nervously told me to take her to the Sentosa Casino. On the way there, she pleaded me to also help her to find her son who she confirmed was gambling in the casino. She said not matter how, she must find his son immediately. Her daughter-in-law had just assaulted her and threatened to kill herself and the grandchild if her son did not return home by midnight. She said her son who works as a delivery man has often stayed overnight at the casinos since the casinos opened. I told her it was impossible for me to locate her son. I suggested to her to use my mobile phone to call her son first. She said her son seldom answers her calls at these times but she tried anyway and fortunately, the son answered. My phone was on speaker mode and I could hear that as soon as the son recognized that the caller was his mother, he started yelling vulgar words on his mother and said that he had just lost few hundred dollars in the casino and was on the way back home. The woman then shyly asked me to turn back worrying she might not have enough to pay me the taxi fare. Indeed, she was short of few dollars in paying me. I told her not to worry and to please take the time to alight the taxi and go home. The baby needs to sleep.
This time, I was ferrying a 40 years old male home at Hougang from Marina Sand Casino. He was quiet all the way in my taxi until we reached near Hougang. He suddenly tapped my shoulder and said that he had no money at all to pay me because he had lost all the money in the casino. He said he would call his wife to bring down the money when we reached his house. I said no problem. It was about 3 am at that time. We waited for about 10 to 15 minutes for his wife to come down, then I told him to forget about the taxi fare and I had to go. But to my consternation, once he saw his wife who looked much older than him approaching us, he aggressively rushed out of my taxi, then slapped his wife and snatched the money from her. After politely paying me the taxi fare, he slapped his wife again. I just drove my taxi slowly away.
Another woman but this time much younger, about early 30s. It was at Marina Sand Hotel, also about 3 am. The moment she stepped into my taxi she started sobbing. She said uncle could you drive me around. I said you must tell me exactly where you wanted to go. She said never mind, just keep driving to Changi Village. I asked, “are you sure?” She said she needed some fresh air. When we hit the ECP, she suddenly said loudly that all men are beast. I replied softly, may be not all and asked why she was so upset. She started to confess that she divorced one year ago and has custody for her 4 years old son. Her ex-husband had forced her to sell their condo and she was renting a room in a HDB flat to stay with her son. She had some cash after selling the condo. She was depressed after the divorce and started to patronize the casinos with her friends. For the first few weeks, she always felt euphoric because she always won. But later, she began to lose more often and bigger. She had used up all her cash saving and began to borrow from siblings, relatives, friends and finally she had to borrow from the ‘Ah Long’. In fact, she told me she just had a discussion with the Ah Long’s runners at Marina Sand Hotel. The runners directly told her that she could sell her body if she could not repay the debt. I did not know what to say. I am not a psychologist, psychiatrist or social worker to advise her accordingly. I just softly asked her where was her son now. She said it didn’t matter and changed her mind that she wanted to go home at Bedok South.
This was a young man, may be about 26 years, probably just started working in the financial district of Shenton Way. He flagged my taxi at the road along the Marina Sand Casino and asked me to drive him home quickly. It was about 4.30 am already on a weekday. He had to rush back to take a nap, then change and go to work again. He told me he would go to the Marina Sand Casino immediately after work and gamble until 3 to 5 am the next morning and then went to work again, at least 2 or 3 times a week. He said he often lost lately and had almost maximize his credit cards to finance the losses.
I can go on but it will probably bore you.
You will never able to read all these despairing stories in our prostituting state-controlled mass media. I believe they purposely not report them in order not to discredit the gambling industry which the PAP has been supporting. PAP and pro-PAP psychologists, psychiatrists or sociologists may say that gambling is a problem that is self-inflicted. It is certainly not the fault of the govt or casinos. Nobody force you to gamble.
But metaphorically, I would like to ask them a question. If hard drug is legally allowed to be sold in Singapore, will there be more drug addicts. The answer is an obvious YES. It is the same for gambling. If the govt allows more casinos, there will be more gamblers.
The death victims of the recent Ferrari accident saddened PM Lee and DPM Teo. I hope the despaired gambling victims of our two casinos also sadden them. After seeing first hand of some of the gamblers’ problems, I must say I am certainly saddened by the social problems caused by our casinos on our fellow Singaporeans.
Singapore is too small a city nation to have casinos. It is just too convenient for any Singaporean to take a bus, taxi, MRT or drive and within few minutes he or she can start gambling in the casino.
I hope all Singaporeans will join hands with me to reject this evil industry. Let’s boycott going to the casinos. Without local Singaporeans’ patronage, the casinos will wind up in no time.
.
A True-Bred Singaporean
