Casino still possible for Golden Mile?

Author: Simon Dexter

From the ashes of Britain’s ‘super casino’ fiasco comes light after Lord McNally of Blackpool declared this week that gambling licences could be transferred to the seaside resort if they are not taken up by other towns. His comments came during a debate which confirmed legislation to allow 16 new large and small casinos to open.

Following the debate, there has been speculation that some towns included in the original list of approved casino locations may not want to take up their licence, which prompted Lord McNally to say: “If all 16 [licences] are not taken up, is there enough flexibility in this legislation, or can the Government use enough common sense, to reallocate those licences to other areas?

“I believe some of the benefits, which would have come from a resort casino, could still be won by Blackpool, by attracting willing casino investors. They would operate not just a stand-alone casino operation but a resort casino.”

Under the new legislation, large casinos such as the one which could now appear in Blackpool may operate up to 150 slot machines with jackpots of £5,000 apiece. It is anticipated they would have around a dozen poker tables. By contrast, the so-called ‘super casinos’ would have offered 1,250 slot machines with top prizes of £1m and at least 25 poker tables.

Initially, Blackpool Council had hoped to attract around £700m of investment by being the home of the UK’s inaugural super casino. A scaled-down version could nonetheless spark considerable inward investment which some analysts believe would be worth more than £250 million.

Tags: Blackpool, Super casino

This entry was posted on Friday, May 23rd, 2008 at 10:08 am and is filed under News & Promotions Blog.