Asia's Growing Gambling Addiction

Below is my comment on the article of "Asia's Growing Gambling Addiction", TIME issued on November 1, 2007.

To my astonishment, so many new casinos are planning to build in Asian countries such as Vietnam, Singapore, and the Philippines in such a short period of time to catch up with the economic success of Macau, the recent Asian Mecca of casino resort. As your article pointed out precisely, Asia, especially China, seems to be more vulnerable to gambling than Europe and other regions because of its cultural and mental generosity to gambling. In order to avoid the problems caused by such weakness in those new casino resorts, central and provincial governments in those areas should in advance take strong leadership to build firm social infrastructure such as the places to teach residents some discipline, to give them some counseling and to keep social orders and public security. Among other places, Singapore seems to me the best place to have new casino resorts in that sense, although it is regarded as a dull place to enjoy now since the society is somewhat too rigid and strict.