The original text:
Taxpayers should not fund the policing of casinos
I REFER to Thursday's report, 'Special training for police unit fighting casino crime'.
I am puzzled as to why the Singapore Police Force is setting up a unit, funded by taxpayers, to investigate crimes and fraudulent gambling in the casinos in the integrated resorts. The police should preserve law and order, and enforce the property rights of common citizens. Taxpayers' money is used to fund the force because all citizens stand to benefit from law, order and property rights.
A police force in any country is funded by taxpayers' money because the public at large stands to gain more than any individual.
However, the only beneficiaries from the prevention of fraud in casinos are the casino operators, and there are no visible spillover benefits to general law enforcement from police officers being trained to detect fraudsters in casinos, because the casinos are a specialised setting.
If the police did not have a casino crime unit, the only losers would be the casinos themselves, and being profit-seeking organisations, they would naturally pay for detection of such fraud, such as by training their own investigators to detect fraudulent gambling.
In other words, enforcement of honest behaviour in casinos is not a public good, from an economic point of view, and the casinos can pay for it because they are the only ones who stand to gain from preventing fraud. Public funds are being used unfairly to pay for the protection of private interests of the profit-seeking casinos. This injustice is exacerbated by the fact that casinos typically earn outrageous profits, and it is only right that they pay to protect their own interests.
Tan Jiaqi
From: http://www.straitstimes.com/STForum/Story/STIStory_484043.html
Summary:
A reader of Straits Times says the government is going to set up a police unit called 'Special training for police unit fighting casino crime'. However it seems that the unit will be supported by taxpayers. So the reader is strongly againse this official decision, because he thinks this action cannot benefit most citizens, so the taxpayers should not pay for that.
Comment:
I really doubt whether this massage is true or not, because as I know, fraud in casinos is really a technical work, which means it is hard to train a whole unit of police officer to detect those type of cases. If the government insists to do that, I am afraid they won't work efficiently, because the casino must have it's own security guards, their authority could be overlaped. So there is no need to be panic before the offical annousment is made.
fly
fly
我的简介
ADM of NTU
ADM of NTU
365 Geoffrey says
回复删除I really do not care whether this report is an official announcement. But for this kind of action. I strongly support the author's opinion that such kind of budget should not be the excuse to take the citizens' taxes. Because for the casinos, they are the profit-seeking orginasations. Government shoud not use people's money to secure the casino. That's unfair for Singaporeans. Actually i think maintaining the security inside the casinos is part of its own job. The casino itself should be reponsible for the customers, which is a basic for all the companies or organisations.
In fact, what makes me curious the most is not who pays for the casino, but who are the true owners of the casinos. In America, the owners are obviously the millionares or billionares, but Sinagpore is different from America. So, i think the casinos are the properties of the government. If the casinos belong to the government, another question occurs. Government gets money from taxes, which means that the casino itself is build by the taxes gotten from the people. If it is in that way, who cares whether the security money is taken from the people or not.
The built of the integrated resort is a puzzle for me. I often think Singapore, such a harmony environment. Does it really need a resort to stimulate the economic boom? Does it really need to take suck a risk to even change the lifestyle of the Singaporeans. The project will be completed in March, and i am going to figure out my answers.
BY IRIS:
回复删除As far as I am concerned, the casino is not built to provide entertainment for Singporeans but for the tourists, for once singpore PRs enter the casino, they have to pay at least S$100 whether they will gamble, so the casino is a luxury place for most Singaporeans to go to. Nevertheless, the government ask those Singapore taxpayers to fund for the police force for the casino which is really unfair to them, they not only cannot enjoy themselves in the casinos, but also have to pay for it, then the casino is becoming a new burden for Singaporeans. So I don't think Singaporeans will accept this requirement of their government. And the Singapore government should think over this policy.