PENANG DOES NOT NEED GAMBLING TO ATTRACT TOURISTS

The DUN member for Pantai Jerjak, Wong Mun Hoe, last Wednesday mooted the idea that a casino and gambling centre should be developed on Pulau Jerjak to attract more tourists to the state of Penang (Utusan Malaysia 4th May 2006).

The idea was immediately shot down the next day when Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced that the Malaysian Government will not allow any new casino to be built anywhere in Malaysia in the near future. This announcement was greeted with broad relief by most Malaysians and immediately extinguished the expected heated debate on the matter.

However, the question remains, why was the idea of building another casino brought up by a state legislative council member in the first place? Was he not aware of the current need of the nation at this moment, of the urgent need to “develope positive cultural values among Malaysians and creating a Bangsa Malaysia” as emphasized in the recently presented Ninth Malaysian Plan? Does anyone hope to achieve this by building another gambling centre?

There is no religion in Malaysia which sanctifies gambling. As Albert Einstein famously said, “ God does not play dice with the universe.” So if God is not a gambler should his followers be? It might be a good idea to see what most religions that we have here in Malaysia say about gambling.

Christianity

The New Testament doesn't include passages specific to gambling, but many Christians believe gambling to be immoral. In his “Christian Response to Gambling”, Ronald A. Reno explains that gambling is a sign of greed and covetousness. Gambling also does not encourage Christians to "love your neighbor," as Jesus commands in Mark 12:31, since gambling winnings are based on the losses of others. Many Christians also condemn gambling because of its adverse impact on families and its tendency to lead to addiction.

Buddhism

Digha Nikaya, a Buddhist text says:-

There are, young householder, these six evil consequences in indulging in gambling:
- the winner begets hate, - the loser grieves for lost wealth, - loss of wealth, - his word is not relied upon in a court of law, - he is despised by his friends and associates, - he is not sought after for matrimony; for people would say he is a gambler and is not fit to look after a wife.

Hinduism

Tirukkural, 94: 931-940 (Hindu text) says:-

Do not take to gambling, even if you can win,
for your wins will be like the baited hooks that fish swallow.
To win once, a gambler loses a hundred times.
What a way to procure happiness and prosperity!
Incessantly calling bets on rolling dice causes
a man's rich reserves and potential revenues to run elsewhere.

Gambling brings on many miseries and erodes one's good name.
Nothing else ends in such wretched poverty.
Desiring to win everything, those who love the dice,
the gambling hall and their lucky hand lose it all.
Gambling is Misfortune's other name. Fools ensnared by her
will suffer an empty stomach and distressing sorrows.

Spending time in the gambling hall squanders
ancestral wealth and wastes personal worth.
Gambling will consume a man's wealth and corrupt his honesty.
It will curtail his benevolence and increase his torment.
Those who take to gambling's fickle gain forfeit these five:
raiments, riches, rations, renown and erudition.
The gambler's passion increases with the losses incurred.
Even so does the soul's craving for life grow with the grief suffered.

Islam is clear cut in forbidding gambling as is written in the Quran, Surah Al-Maidah 5: 90-91:-

O you who believe! Intoxicants and gambling, (dedication of) stones, and (divination by) arrows, are an abomination, of Satan's handwork: eschew such (abomination), that you may prosper.

Satan's plan is (but) to excite enmity and hatred between you, with intoxicants and gambling, and hinder you from the remembrance of Allah, and from prayer: will you not then abstain?

It is with an understanding of the nature of gambling that Islam is firm in outlawing any form of gambling and practices which are detrimental to the human self and which obstruct the solidarity of humankind even though they might seem to have high commercial value and able to generate material profit.