Casinos in Goa: The Challenge Ahead is to Implement Sustainable Strategies to Minimize Their Ill-Effects
Published: 2018
Author(s) Name: Afonso Botelho |
Author(s) Affiliation: Associate Prof., Dept. of Sociology, Rosary College of Commerce and Arts, Navelim, Goa, India
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Abstract
The government of Goa has been promoting casino tourism in Goa arguing that promoting casinos is necessary to bolster the economic growth of Goa especially in the aftermath of the mining ban that deprived Goa and its government of the substantial revenue generated through mining. The casino promotion, however, has met with strong protests in Goa from the time the government decided to encourage casinos to expand the growth of tourism in Goa. Casinos have taken strong roots in Goa and clearing the ever-growing forest of casinos is becoming more and more difficult as years roll by. The offshore casinos have almost fused with the landscape of Panjim making it almost next to impossible to visualize Panjim and the river Mandovi sans the casinos. At this juncture, accepting, despite all opposition, that the reality of Panjim ‘casinoscape’ will linger on into the future, the challenges ahead lie in implementing sustainable strategies to maximize the gains from casinos and counteract the prospective ill-effects from casino type tourism instead of imagining a return back to the Panjim of the 1990s and earlier.
Keywords: Casinos, Economy, Employment, Crime, Strategies
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