Conservatives Revolting Against Casino

Parliament has its hands full these days with a possible revolt led by the Conservatives. They are threatening to pull down the whole house of cards that Parliament has built unless they get their way. They say that the loophole in the Gambling Act 2005 that will allow thousands of slot machines to be legalized in the country is not fair to the existing casinos that already have slot machines.

They have written a letter to Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell stating that the 14,000 slot machines that are about to come into the country should not be allowed without provisions for the existing casinos. They say that when Parliament meets in the next few weeks, they will be there to debate the issue and state their case. They say that the new slot machines and rulings are in “breach of European competition rules.”

The problem is that Parliament is about to allow 17 new casinos to come into the country, and those casinos will be allowed 10 times more slot machines than the existing gambling halls. The older casinos are saying that they just want the same rules applied to them. Tory Shadow Culture Secretary Hugo Swire says that Parliament obviously did not think it through when debating the legislation. Swire says that they cannot allow this to happen, and his party is considering whether or not to allow its members a free vote.

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