While the Guyana government is in the process of setting up a gaming authority to oversee the functioning of casinos, the Belizean government has put on hold all new applications for casino licences while it reviews the industry to identify loopholes and put in place measures to make sure it gets its fair share of the pie.
According to President Bharrat Jagdeo, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Tourism, Industry and Commerce were in the process of setting up the gaming authority, which has to be in place before casino licences are issued.
The governments of Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname are also currently reviewing the operations of casinos.
Recent reports out of Belize said that all applications for casino licences in that country were on hold after the country’s multimillion dollar casino and gaming industry had come under the microscope. This had followed reports that the Belize government was losing millions of dollars in gambling revenue because of a number of factors, including reports of money laundering.
As part of the review, the Minister of Economic Development Erwin Contreras was reported as saying that the government was seeking the help of an expert from the Bahamas to assist in ensuring that casinos played fair both with their clients and with the government.
While not being specific, The Reporter of Belize in its May 7, 2008, edition quoted Contreras as saying that the ousted Said Musa government had turned a blind eye to the industry and had “knowingly allowed an influential mover and shaker in the industry to manipulate the system and turn it into a profitable vehicle for money laundering.”
At the start of the year, it was reported that only two public servants were tasked with supervising the industry at the Casino and Gaming Unit in the Ministry of Economic Development, and these two officials were in charge of managing online gaming, casino operations, and gaming establishments across the country as well as in the export processing zones.
The Reporter said, “The Princess Casino, perhaps the major casino operation in the country, was turning over more than $3 million a month in revenue but without an adequate monitoring system, [and] the government believes it is being routinely short-changed.” It said that efforts to reach the casino management had been unsuccessful.
‘Casino King’
The Princess Group of Companies, which is the parent company of The Princess Hotel and Casino in Belize, has recently purchased Buddy’s International Hotel at Providence, East Bank Demerara. (See other story on this page.)
Özkan who met President Jagdeo briefly prior to purchasing the property to determine whether government would back the project, said he had been given all assurances that the administration was behind the multi-million dollar investment.
Özkan is known as the ‘Casino King’ in Turkey. Starting with one centre, he now has 20 in the country. He began in the industry as manager of the Istanbul Movenpick Hotel’s casino, later buying it and changing its name to the Princess. Now no one knows the amount of money he has earned from these ventures, but it is known that Özkan, who shies away from the press, also owns casinos abroad. Asked about plans for the casino which he intends to operate out of the facility, Özkan said that no licence had yet been granted, but it would be an expensive undertaking to establish a casino, an undertaking nevertheless he would be pursuing.
In an interview reported in Stabroek News in May, Özkan, who operates hotel properties around the world under the umbrella of the Princess Group of Companies, said that if the Hilton decided in favour of its brand being used, he would like to rename the Buddy’s International Hotel the ‘Guyana Hilton’ or ‘Princess Hilton.’
He said he had approached the Hilton and Sheraton hotels with the idea of the property carrying either brand.
On Friday, he told the Stabroek News that one way or another he would secure the branding of an internationally recognised hotel chain and that this could come from the Holiday Inn, if the Hilton was not interested.
He gave no update on the team from Hilton that was expected to visit the property to conduct an assessment and indicate the list of requirements that would have to be fulfilled if the hotel were to carry their brand. However, he said there was much work to be done on elevating the hotel to the five-star ranking.
Meanwhile concerns have been expressed in some quarters in Guyana about the operations of some of the hotels and casinos carrying the Princess brand.
A 2004 preliminary report done by Juan Miguel Petit for the Organisation of American States titled ‘Trafficking of Persons in Belize Report’ noted that The Princess Hotel and Casino was mentioned as being “risky” in terms of prostitution and trafficking in persons.
The report said that while Belize City was not the capital city it was most important as the reference point for financial activities and was a “must” transit spot for tourists heading towards the Caribbean islands and other places. As a result the city had the features of tourism and the social ills that went with it. The Princess Hotel and Casino was described as a huge resort hotel with casino, movie centre and shopping located at the seaside.
In a meeting which took place in August, Petit said, people who worked on matters related to migration and human trafficking referred to reports on prostitution and on foreign women who were kept in the hotel. The preliminary report noted too that The Princess Hotel offered ‘The Russian Dancers Show’ performed entirely by women who came from eastern countries. There were contradictory reports in relation to them, Petit went on to say, but the hotel had said that they offered only a dance show. Two years after this preliminary report was published Belize was removed from the United States Tier 3 ‘blacklist’ in relation to trafficking in persons after it took additional steps to deal with the problem.
Asked about the Princess Hotel and Casino in Belize being cited adversely in reports, Özkan told the Stabroek News that the operations of the Princess Group were clean. He said that the Belize Hotel and Casino had been operating in Belize since January 2000 and was the best hotel in the country. The government of Belize, he said, was very satisfied with its operations.
Özkan was critical of “negative reports” stating that they were “not good for the industry. People believe what you write,” he said.
