The idea that Singapore Pools was created to protect the public from being scammed, is stretching the truth

I read Minister for Finance, Heng Swee Keat's address at the 50th anniversary celebrations of Singapore Pools with a certain degree of mirth and amusement.

In his speech, he stated that Singapore Pools was created by the authorities to curb the trend of punters who were "vulnerable to filching, unfair play and other illicit practices".

In his speech, Heng made clear that the Singapore Pools was created as a legal gaming operator in Singapore to protect the public from the "illegal operators" who preyed on innocent small-time gamblers in back alleys.

While I am not at all knocking the many charitable contributions that Singapore Pools has made and which Heng made sure to highlight, what he didn’t mention was how well the government coffers have done out of the creation of Singapore Pools. What percentage of Singapore Pool's revenue is donated to charity?

I absolutely understand the need for gambling to be regulated but to imply that Singapore Pools was created in large to protect the public from being scammed is quite frankly (in my opinion at least), stretching the truth!

Protecting the public may have been part of the reason for the creation of Singapore Pools but ensuring that the tax man gets a cut of this lucrative vice would be a very legitimate reason as well. Honestly, there's no shame in admitting that. Countries the world over have done this. So why the need to make it seem like the creation of Singapore Pools was some great charitable act of altruism to Singaporeans?

Is there a need to claim credit just for the sake of it?

This also does not gel with the building of the casinos in Singapore. If the welfare of Singaporeans was the primary concern of why Singapore Pools was created, why did the government go ahead with the building of the casinos despite huge public resistance to the idea when it was floated?

Revenue creation is the motivation for why Singapore Pools was created and why the casinos were allowed to open. The fact that Singapore Pools may have helped certain Singaporeans was a bi-product and that's completely fine. However, please just call a spade a spade.

This entry was posted in Opinion.

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