Peter Jackson column

Feb 1 2007 By Peter Jackson, The Journal

Biggest is best seems to be the current watchword in gambling.

It's certainly a philosophy that worked for James Wilson, an 84-year-old retired electrician from Missouri who won £130m in the Powerball multi-state lottery.

Mr Wilson's wife and three sons have been buying lottery tickets for years, but reportedly, Mr Wilson only buys tickets when the jackpot is high.

He is not alone in this. It's a common phenomenon in this country that lottery ticket sales increase for a rollover jackpot.

It might seem bizarre, but there are many people, presumably, who cannot be bothered to buy and fill in a ticket for a piffling £8m or £9m, but will consider it worth a punt for nearer £20m.

Anyway, while waiting for the big one might have worked for Mr Wilson, it didn't for Blackpool.

That Lancashire resort lost out to nearby Manchester in the race to become home to the UK's first super-casino, to the surprise of most observers, who had Manchester at the bottom of the list of seven bidders and Blackpool as a favourite.

On historical grounds, it should certainly have been in with a chance, having been parting the working classes and their children from their hard-earned coppers in the town's arcades, while gambling was still regarded as highly disreputable in the rest of the country.

Sadly, while devoting its energies to land the super-casino, Blackpool has missed out on the eight large and eight small casinos for which licences have also been granted by the Casino Advisory Panel.

The belief is that casinos - and particularly the super casino - will be great engines of economic regeneration, with the organisers of Manchester's bid claiming it will bring £265m of investment and 2,700 direct and indirect jobs.

In fact, if the US experience is anything to go by, gambling will not necessarily be the most important economic factor in the super casino, but operations such as restaurants, hotels, shops and other attractions will make more of a contribution to the bottom line, and to employment.

And where does this all leave the North-East? With a licence for one of the large casinos in Middlesbrough.

But don't imagine it will end there. There would be no point in allowing one super casino unless others were to follow.