Monte Carlo on the Murray - Victoria's Second Casino in Mildura?

According to today's Herald-Sun there seems to be a push for a second casino in Victoria. It seems however that the proposed location is Mildura, about as far away from Melbourne as you can get. Here is the article in full.

Sparks fly over casino

PLANS for a casino in Mildura have pitched the town's biggest businessman and a local MP into open conflict.

Independent MP Russell Savage has launched a stinging attack on Don Carazza, the man he believes is behind a proposal for Victoria's second casino.

``They are the epitome of what I call the selfish business person,'' Mr Savage said.

``In terms of the social impact, they would have to do it over my dead body.''

Mr Carazza said Mr Savage's comments were ``bulls--t''.

``(It is) not true at all, how can he say that? If he can prove that I'm the man behind the submission, I'll give you $100,000.

``He doesn't like me and I don't like him . . . but I don't have any greed at all.''

Mr Carazza, who owns Mildura's landmark Grand Hotel, denied he was behind one of two submissions to build a casino in the Murray River town in the state's far northwest. But he said he would consider becoming involved if a casino project got off the ground.

Mr Carazza, who operates 24 poker machines and is owner of one of son-in-law Stefano de Pieri's renowned restaurants, denied he had contacted the Victorian Government about a casino.

``We'd be very happy to be part of it, but at this stage I don't think anyone's made any attempt to create one or build one or to try for one,'' he said.

Mr Carazza warned that a venue based exclusively on gambling would fail in any country area.

``If it was a different type of casino, a casino like they do in Europe in a big hotel with two or three roulette tables and a couple blackjack (tables) and a few poker machines . . . then you can have a sort of entertainment centre rather than a casino,'' Mr Carazza said.

``There's some merit in a big hotel that has the ability to provide all the other extras like entertainment, good food, conference facilities . . . then you might have some chance of survival.''

But Mr Savage said anyone who thought they could set up a casino in Mildura would be playing a losing hand.

``My message would be to forget about it, wait until I'm not the member of Parliament up here and they can find someone else who's a little more compliant to their selfish agenda,'' he said.

Since 1999, legislation has allowed for a casino to be built more than 150km from Melbourne, although the Government and Opposition have ruled out issuing a licence.

A dozen informal submissions for country casinos have been made to the State Government, including proposals from Lake Eildon, the Grampians, Lakes Entrance, Warrnambool and three separate bids from Echuca.

From November next year, a second casino could be built anywhere in the state, including the CBD, when Crown's exclusivity agreement ends.

No applications for a new city casino have been submitted to the Government.

So it looks like Victoria probably will have another casino with 5-10 years. In my opinion it will probably be a boutique casino but will definitely need poker machines to support it (probably at least 400 in my experience.) Unfortunately for my colleagues in the region, a location like Echuca, probably would be the most successful of the country locations. However NSW could always steal some of the thunder of any Victorian border casinos by introducing riverboat gambling!?

Do we need another casino? Ultimately it will be for the country communities to decide as I don't believe the city could support another casino. It will also need to be close to existing major attractions and have a large enough tourist base to succeed. Any proposed country casino will have to be a tourist casino so it would be interesting to see what the effect on the local population would be.

Closer to the CBD, potential locations could be the Yarra Valley or Mornington Penninsula - less than an hour's drive from the CBD with a range of other attractions including wineries near by. These locations would again be suited by a boutique style casino. Other advantages of these locations is that they already have reasonable infrastructure - especially true for the Penninsula.

At the moment there are just to many unanswered questions to even contemplate the potential effects but I would expect that a licence would eventually be issued whether we like it or not.

What do you think?

GG

GG's Note: This post has been corrected as the article was in today's Herald-Sun - 17 November 2004