Gaming UK: how prepared is Manchester (UK) for vegas-style supercasinos?

Casinos provide a remedy for desperately declining cities, and the case of Atlantic City, New Jersey provides one critical illustration of this. It was the only state other than Nevada to have legalized casino gambling in the late 1970s when the state looked to the casino hotel industry to invest capital, create jobs, pay taxes, and attract tourists and thus revitalise the economy as well as create a sound financial environment for urban redevelopment. It has also notably been linked with making cities vibrant places to visit and as an opportunity to become world class cities. Cities in Austria and Australia (including Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, and Sydney) have also towed a similar line and watched as their respective cities have been regenerated - thus making the supercasinos a contender for unparalleled economic engine - given the proper timing and market location. However this new wave of the entrepreneurial state, in its attempts to reimage the city through such measures as casinos, seems to have lessened the degree of public participation in the planning process. Using a survey of fifty second year international business students from two London-based Universities between September 2006 and February 2007, this paper highlights the social and economic dimensions of supercasinos - especially as the government toys with the idea of licenses for these with Manchester at the forefront - in the context of consumer welfare and concludes that unless the economic benefits of supercasinos can be demonstrated to substantially eclipse the social costs of such ventures - the replication of Vegas style supercasinos would remain a tall order.