Charities could run casinos in Ireland

The review of Irelands gambling laws continues to be lobbied and in the Irish casino news this time it is the Rehab Group which is a non governmental body providing training and employment for disabled people who are said to support the building of around 10 licensed casinos in the country. The Rehab Group is already into the gaming market through lottery and scratch card sales which provide valuable funding but has now shown interest in applying for a license for a casino. Irish casino news suggests that the Rehab Group has made a submission stating that ‘‘In order to provide high quality entertainment venues, Irish casinos should have about 30,000 square feet in floor space and have the capacity to generate gross annual gaming revenues in excess of €10 million”. The Chief Executive of Rehab is also co chair of a group of political and business leaders who have published a paper on Ireland’s recovery and in that paper it is suggested that Ireland extend its gaming activities not only by opening casinos in the country but also by tackling the issue of online casinos where Irish and UK operators are using overseas bases such as Malta and Gibraltar thus denying the Government income. As we have previously reported here in the Irish casino news section of onlinecasino.ie even a small market share of the online market would create thousands of jobs and millions of Euro in taxes. Also in the casino news is the fact that a developer has proposed a super casino in Dublin which would be in addition to the proposal for the super casino in Tipperary. None of this matters too much at the moment as the laws have not yet been changed but the case for modernisation seems to be gathering pace.