SIR – AS A REGULAR READER OF SECURITY Management Today I was shocked and very surprised that you should make such sweeping generalities about the casino industry in your January editorial (‘Taking a gamble’, p3).
You are well aware that the British gaming industry is the most closely regulated in the world, and takes its compliance responsibilities very seriously indeed. To allege, as you have done, that this industry is riddled with corruption, organised crime and money laundering is a complete travesty of the truth.
If this is the case, why did your journal publish an article in the same edition (‘Leave nothing to chance’, pp26-30) indicating to readers that there are opportunities for them in this ‘corrupt’ business?
In future, you should properly research your comments before indulging your own preconceptions and prejudices.
Many thanks for your Letter To The Editor, John. I’m delighted that you’re an avid reader of the journal. You are exactly the type of corporate professional we need to be reaching (and influencing) with the articles and comment/advisory pieces we publish each month.
With specific reference to Security Management Today’s Editorial Leader in the January edition, however, I have to take issue with some of the statements you have made.
At no point have I suggested that “this industry [ie the casino and gaming sector] is riddled with corruption, organised crime and money laundering”. What I have actually suggested with my – carefully chosen – wording is that the industry attracts these ‘nasties’ to its fringes. I clearly wasn’t referring to the people who work for the gaming companies, but the crooks who try their luck at the tables, etc. I think that is an accepted truth.
I am indeed well aware that the British gaming industry is “the most closely regulated in the world”. However, the very fact that the Government deems it necessary to regulate this – or indeed any other – sector of industry is because Parliament perceives some kind of current or future problem.
The Government has deliberated long and hard over ‘super casinos’, with concerns over the protection of minors and organised crime being top of the regulatory list. If there was no issue relating to criminality or social disharmony at stake here then there would be no need for extended and revised legislation.
To be blunt, if there were no criminal elements playing at the fringes of the industry then the Rank Group and other operators would not have to employ security teams to deal with them. One need only visit a casino in this country – which was part of my research for this article, and whereupon I spoke to the management team at Stanley Casinos – to recognise that many of the punters around the tables, roulette wheels and slot machines are not what you might call pillars of our society. It’s a well-known fact that money corrupts, and wherever money proliferates there’s an increased risk that certain types of individual will be on hand to feather their own nest by whatever means possible.
You also suggest that I should “properly research” my comments. I can assure you that you will not find another journalist in this industry who researches their articles more thoroughly than the Editor of Security Management Today. We spent days trawling the Internet and talking to the Home Office before putting ‘pen to paper’ on this topic.
Having subsequently re-read my comments in the January edition of Security Management Today, I stand by them 100%.
Brian Sims, Editor, SMT
Source
SMT
Postscript
John Butler, Director of Security, Rank Group (Gaming Division)
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