Toying with the idea of adding more glitz and jangle to its beach tourism, Goa, the world's fifth best tourist destination, is set to become a gambler's paradise a la Las Vegas, as the state government has agreed in-principle to allow licences to five more floating casinos.
Almost after a decade the first-ever off-shore casino was floated, Goa is receiving tremendous response for opening new off-shore casinos and with this, the state government has hiked the annual fee from Rs 1 crore (Rs 10 million) to Rs 5 crore (Rs 50 million) to carry out operations for off-shore casinos.
Goa enjoys the status of having the first-ever floating casino in India, which was started by the Advani group along the Mandovi river here in the capital city.
The Goa government has legalised gambling, a pastime in India which goes back to the time of the Vedic era as related in the Mahabharat.
"We are receiving immense response for opening new casinos and the cabinet decided to increase the annual fees," a senior official told Business Standard.
The official said that the state received a total of 15 applications for opening floating casinos and of those 10 were approved by the Goa government. But, the Pratapsingh Rane-led Congress government drew flak from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in this regard.
"The cabinet has decided to allow only five additional licences for off-shore casinos," the official maintained.
It is learnt that the other reason for increasing the annual fee is to restrict the number of off-shore casinos only to five following strong criticism from BJP.
So far the gaming industry is small in Goa, with casinos in eight 5-star hotels-Goldfinger (Cidade de Goa Beach Resort), Hacienda De Oro (Holiday Inn Goa Resort), Las Vegas-The Gaming Club (Leela Palace Hotel), Goa Nugget (Ramada Caravela Beach Resort), Treasures Casino (Majorda Beach Resort), Winners (Goa Marriott Resort) and Chances (Vainguinim Beach Resort) and one floating casino (The Caravela).
