SINGAPORE, Nov 22 — Social scientist Derek da Cunha is a man so mindful of what he says publicly that one wonders why he thought to write a book on one of Singapore's most heated subjects — that is, the pros and cons of Singapore's two upcoming integrated resorts (IRs). Okay, casinos.
Then again, it may be because of his mindfulness that makes his book — titled “Singapore Places Its Bets” — a cracking good read on everything you ever cheered or feared about having the Marina Bay Sands (MBS) and Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) in your midst from next year.
Crafted cautiously, it is an elegant, balanced read chock-a- block with facts that speak for themselves. It is his second book, following his 1997 work, “The Price Of Victory: The 1997 Singapore General Election And Beyond”. He is now writing a few more books, including “The New Asian Aristocracy”.
That same mindfulness had da Cunha, 49, revising his book well into last month, so that he could include the latest analysts' reports on the IRs' prospects from, among others, financial conglomerates Citibank and CIMB.
Curiously, he noted, analysts in the past two months or so have underscored the importance of local gamblers in ensuring the success of MBS, which is owned by America's Las Vegas Sands (LVS), and RWS, which is owned by Genting Singapore, a spin-off of Malaysia's Genting group. This is at odds with the government's banking on foreign fat cats to sustain the IRs.
On April 18, 2005, the government announced that Singapore would have not one but two casinos — a U-turn from its long, utter anathema towards such gaming. This was 13 months after the government first floated the idea, and in his book, da Cunha puts such a sudden policy change down to what he calls the government's “Big Bang”, “all-or-nothing, feast-or-famine mindset”.
Before da Cunha struck out on his own as an independent scholar and sometime consultant in April 2006, he worked at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (Iseas) for 16 years.
Then, in late 2006, the alumnus of Cambridge University and the Australian National University hit upon the idea of writing a book to chronicle Singapore's many efforts in making itself over to stay relevant in increasingly uncertain times.
He went to work on the proposed book in earnest, but by December last year, found that 60 per cent of it was focused on the IRs. So he considered hiving that 60 per cent off into a separate book altogether, and after talks with his publisher Straits Times Press, he did exactly that.
There is, to be sure, plenty in the book to please and prickle the conscience of those in the pro- and anti-casino camps alike. For example, he discusses deeply how gambling-happy or simply bored folk here might easily become problem gamblers — because the IRs are just an MRT or bus ride away from their homes, unlike the casinos in Malaysia or far-flung locations like Macau, Las Vegas and Canada.
He is also rueful of the “nothing succeeds like excess” mindset of many young Singaporeans today, which he thinks is “quite a ruinous way to move forward”.
But why release the book now? Is he not trickling cold water on an endeavour that the republic can ill afford to fail?
As da Cunha shows in his book, with the two IRs, the Singapore Tourism Board hopes to treble tourism revenues from S$9.6 billion (RM23 billion) in 2004 to S$30 billion in 2015. This would also give back to Singapore a bigger share of the Asia-Pacific tourism market, which had declined from a high of 13.1 per cent in 1991 to a mere 5.8 per cent by 2004.
He said wryly: “If my book came out a year after the openings, people would say that is after-the-event wisdom, that my book doesn't add anything because they know what has happened.”
But while hindsight may be 20/20, might the IRs have a 50/50 chance of succeeding at best, seeing as millions of would-be gamblers around the world are out of jobs?
Not at all, he said. “I am very optimistic that the sheer novelty of the IRs will make them resounding successes.”
Thursday's news that Singapore is officially out of the recession has also added shine to the IRs' prospects.
The one thing he thinks might count against them is the growing perception that Singapore is a very expensive city to visit, the 10th priciest in the world this year by the Economist Intelligence Unit's reckoning.
He has two further worries about the IRs' impact.
The first is the assumption that many have — that casino gambling is punting by any other name. He shows in his book that punters actually bet, and so lose, more heavily at casino table games than they do on long-shot lotteries.
His other concern is just how frenziedly Genting and LVS will work to recoup their staggering investments — Genting, for one thing, has pumped S$6.59 billion into RWS at last check, and hopes to attract up to 13 million tourists in its first year.
“The question that arises,” he intones, “is whether the same objectives of generating greater tourist dollar receipts, giving a boost to the economy and also increasing job creation could have been achieved at almost a similar degree with two projects that cost less than half of what they do now.”
For example, he said, Wynn Resorts has only one casino in Macau but still manages to enjoy the third biggest slice of the revenue pie after casino magnate Stanley Ho's Sociedade de Jojos de Macau group and LVS, both of which have two or more casinos.
As for tackling the grit and sleaze typically part and parcel of the casino scene, he sees that as a work in progress and one that should be calibrated so as not to put punters off so much that they then shun the IRs.
Being a social scientist, he wondered, though: “Is it possible to ring-fence such vibrancy to purely the economic and social spheres, and not extend it to the political one?” — Straits Times
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