Manchester Lose Supercasino

Manchester’s plans for a super casino have finally been dealt a death-blow by Gordon Brown, who has confirmed that no such super casino will be given the go-ahead, although plans for sixteen smaller casinos around the country will be progressing.

Last year, Manchester was the shock winner of a race for the right to have a super casino, leaving more-fancied places like Greenwich and Blackpool reeling. The victory was welcomed by council officials in Manchester, and many politicians on both sides of the house felt that the super-casino would help to pave the way for a much-need regeneration of the area.

But all of that was when Tony Blair was Prime Minister. When Gordon Brown managed to slide into the driving seat of the country without as much as an election, he had no intention of following things through just because they had already been decided. Instead – despite the fact that he had himself voted for Manchester to get the super casino when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer – he hinted at a U-turn in the latter half of 2007. And now, just over a year after the City of Manchester was celebrating the chance to regenerate one of its most needy areas, it is mourning the fact that the opportunity has been snatched away.

Las Vegas Sands, the gaming and hotel development company which was intending to put in a bid for the super casino in Manchester, has said that it was not interested in anything other than the super casino itself. If that is the case, the odds of that particular company making a bid for any of the smaller casinos in the UK don’t look good.

Having sixteen more casinos in the UK (eight large and eight small) will of course be better than having no more casinos, but the loss of the whole super casino notion for the time being is not something that either the industry or casino players can welcome.

Fortunately, it’s not all bad news on the traditional casino front this month. A brand new multi-million pound Palace Casino in Yarmouth is all set to open its doors to an estimated 75,000 visitors each year.

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