A supercasino firm want to apply to operate a new gambling site in Southampton.

Here David Masters, below, Pastor, of Southampton city centre Baptist Church outlines why the city should reject any move for a large gambling centre.

Daily Echo:

 "I AM concerned about gambling, full
stop.
"You just need to look around
Southampton to see how many
betting shops there are and how
much debt and indirect poverty
there is.
You can
have a look
at how
much
money is
being made
by
businesses
out of
gambling machines.
"We really do not need another form
of gambling for people to spend more
money which they may or may not
have on. People do buy into the belief
system that you’ve got to be in it to
win it, and actually most of the time
you won’t.
“My grandfather used to live next
door to a guy who was a bookie at
the horse races, and he said there
was only ever one winner – the
bookies – and that would be the
same with a super-casino. It is a
business, they are there to part the
punter from their money, full stop.
“We already have two casinos in
Southampton, do we really need
another one, whether it is bigger or
smaller? I don’t think we do.
"I would like to see the proposals for
a super-casino turned down flat.
The people of Southampton simply
don’t have the spare cash to fund this
kind of
business and
no matter
how they
sweeten the
deal through
free drinks or
other means,
the people of
the city, particularly the poor, cannot
afford to buy into the myth of “you’re
in it to win it”.
"When you are working with very
tight margins, and there is
supposedly a way of turning that tight
margin into making a bigger margin,
people do squander what they cannot
afford, be it on a one-off splurge or in
little-by-little steps.
"I know there is a huge and growing
amount of people using the Basics
Bank over the last three years –
people are not surviving on the
money they do have.
They don’t need another big
business trying to take their money
away from them."

To read the case FOR a supercasino click here