After some two years of operating in a free-for-all environment, the government has finally stepped up its efforts in containing the flourishing of gambling shops all over the Maltese islands. It was high time that action was taken, but the reasons behind the massive police swoop that closed down some 80 outlets should also be queried.
The problem with gaming shops was that they were operating within a strange lacuna of the gaming law. When the Lotteries and Gaming Authority devised new laws on video-lottery terminals (VLTs) – the new generation gambling machines – it seemingly ignored the necessity of imposing stringent conditions, through a licensing system, on those who wanted to run gaming shops with VLTs.
So for the past couple of years, all that was required for anybody to run their own gaming shop, was a ‘change of use’ permit from the Malta Environment and Planning Authority. That is how dozens of residences – ironically even St George Preca’s house in Hamrun – were turned into unregulated gambling halls, some of them next to places of worship and schools. A proper free-for-all which residents have been unable to protest against.
The lack of such a licence, one which would have placed onerous conditions on the licensee, led to dozens of gaming shops mushrooming in residential areas.
Finally, action was taken. Surely this is commendable, but wasn’t this late reaction just another symptom of bad governance? How could dozens of small entrepreneurs suddenly start to run their own gaming shops in full view of the authorities, to be closed down the next day? And how loud must the concern of the electorate be for this government to finally take action on these gaming outlets?
There is a balance to be struck when it comes to activities which perhaps do not enjoy the backing of the moral majority. In European countries, regulation and zoning of gambling, prostitution, and even drug use helps prevent, to some extent, such activities from going underground and turning into criminal activity.
If we are to strike a proper balance for our island, we must start taking regulation very seriously. If gaming shops are to be allowed to operate, strict regulatory conditions must dictate who is suitable to run such operations, who can enter these outlets, and where these outlets can be opened. And we must address the negative social impact that opening the floodgates to gaming shops has had.
Can this government then declare its policy on such activities? Can it explain where it stands on issues of ‘public morality’? Only recently, after decades of running a well known, yet little frequented porn cinema, police arraigned the operator of Valletta’s City Lights cinema. Considering that porn is freely available on the internet and on our newsstands, such an action only betrays the hypocrisy of how this government goes about particular business activities on the fringes of social acceptance.
A similar contradiction exists in restrictions on certain licences for online sports betting companies which relocated to Malta, and which cannot offer their services to Maltese residents; while Maltese residents can play openly on other, overseas-based online betting sites.
So where does this government really stand on these issues of ‘moral relativism’? Is it a government that openly supports business irrespective of its social effects, or is it a conservative government with just some prejudice for certain activities, and not for others?
The Nationalist government must get to grips with its own ethical implosion. On one hand it proclaims its opposition to divorce, an opposition directly inherited from the conservatism of its ideological roots and past leaders. On the other hand, it is a government that has opened the doors of fiscal incentives wide open to the world’s largest online porn billing company and the multi-million euro online gaming industry.
Last Sunday Tonio Fenech told listeners on Radio 101 that the human being is at the centre of Nationalists policies and that politicians’ responsibility is towards the individual and the family. But nothing could be further from the truth. It had to be the finance minister, who is responsible for the Lotteries and Gaming Authority, to fall into this trap of empty rhetoric. Something just does not make sense.
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