Casino Royale? Flushed?

The much-hyped Queens Wharf Casino project originally promised to lure thousands of high spending Asian tourists (and gamblers) to Brisbane every week, injecting megadoses of energy (and cash) into our economy. The project, it was promised, would ‘put Brisbane on the map.’

Sadly, for many reasons, the owners are now faced with the need to radically rethink the entire rationale of the project. Gone are the promised high-end retailers. Now, it will be McDonalds and Lululemon, with low-cost cinemas and other budget-oriented offerings targeting locals instead of high-end foreign tourists. They are doing what anyone in business would – look for an alternative approach to save the business and get some return on the very considerable capital invested.

For the wider society though, the question could be asked: “when will we learn?” The cargo cult mentality seems irrevocably welded to big shiny things that promise to “put our city on the map.” This is nothing new, and almost every city in Australia seems to suffer the same affliction from time to time. That history in Australia is no better told than through our repeated fascination with casinos.

Where was the very first casino in Australia? It was Hobart, at Wrest Point in 1972. This was going to lure tourists to the Tassie capital in their droves. Hobart even got a new airport terminal because of it (1976). But the cracks soon emerged – while pokies were initially prohibited under the agreement, the license owners soon persuaded the government that a change was needed and over 600 pokies were installed. The casino owners were also fined on a number of occasions for machines that were not paying out as they should. Dishonesty and casinos? Noooooo!

Even more counter-intuitive is where the next casino in Australia opened. Any guess? It was in Launceston, also Tasmania. Opening as the ‘Country Club’ in 1982 the license was granted in order to provide competition to the owners of the Hobart license. And (let’s be honest), because Hobart got one, Launceston should have one too! And guess what? Rather than provide the promised competition, the owners of the Hobart License eventually secured the Launceston license also. Oh, and over 500 pokies were soon installed.

Neither has lived up to their ‘tourism magnet’ promise and are basically now just down market pokie dens for punters and pensioners. The term ‘casino’ is being generous.

Around the same time as Launceston opened its doors, two more casinos opened, with a similar menu of exaggerated promises. This time it was in the thriving tourism northern cities of Darwin and Alice Springs. Yes folks, the Northern Territory opened two at once. Cop that the rest of Australia!

Shortly after Darwin’s casino made absolutely no splash in the worldwide gambling  community of high rollers and big spenders, another one opened in … wait for it … Canberra! Wow, by now Australia ought to be drawing in big spenders from all over the world. Look out Vegas!

Hang on, what about the major centres in Australia, and the big tourism towns? If casinos were to draw international tourist dollars to Launceston and Canberra, surely they would be needed in places visitors actually went to?

Correct, and so Brisbane got its Treasury Casino in 1985 and shortly after the Gold Coast got Jupiter’s Casino in 1986. Townsville also got one in 1986 because… well, why not?

Adelaide wasn’t going to miss out on the action: they got their casino in 1985, while our mates out west got a Perth Casino in the same year.

Cairns was feeling left out, so they got The Reef Casino in 1996. That was sure to steal all the attention back from Townsville!