Gambling's losers

Much as we acknowledge the merits of the joint scrutiny committee's reports on the proposed gambling bill, to say that they have "saved us from disaster" is something of a spurious claim (Leader, September 23). Who does "us" refer to? Certainly not to the existing UK gaming and leisure industry, which will be unable to compete with the large-scale US casino operators that the bill will open the door to, and therefore will struggle to survive. Nor does it refer to the new problem gamblers that these casinos with unlimited stake and prize machines will create. So who will actually benefit from the bill at all? Not the British public, which has expressed no particular demand for huge regional casinos and will now have their current leisure offerings limited. Nor, curiously, will the government, which despite anticipating major new investment and economic growth as a result of the new legislation, is likely to find that most of this investment and growth will be taken out of the UK and back to the US. Tessa Jowell's call for a more "cautious, step-by-step approach" is to be commended, but to say that we have been "saved...from disaster" is at best premature and at worst completely misguided. We still have a bill that will threaten British industry, fail to fulfill its lofty regeneration claims, and increase the threat of problem gambling among the vulnerable. Roger Hayes Chief executive, British Amusement and Catering Trade Association