BGC slams decision to delay reopening of casinos

The Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) has lambasted the government for reversing it’s plans to allow casino operators to reopen on 1 August, claiming that the decision will result in the permanent loss of ‘up to 6,000 jobs’.

The industry standards body claimed that the ‘wrecking ball’ decision could cause permanent damage to the sector, which the BGC emphasised should have been ‘unnecessary and avoidable’.

BGC Chief Executive Michael Dugher said: “The Government are swinging a wrecking ball right through the middle of our industry and large scale job losses, which ought to be unnecessary and avoidable, now look inevitable unless ministers act fast”.

“Casinos are a small but fundamental part of our leisure, hospitality, entertainment and tourism industry. They employ over 14,000 people across the UK and indirectly support another 4,000 jobs in the supply sector, and last year casinos paid over £5.7 million in tax per week.

“The ongoing cost of remaining in a holding pattern to reopen is clearly not sustainable, with more jobs and livelihoods being put at risk with every last minute change and delay to reopening.

“The Job Retention Scheme has helped but our members will now be forced to pay National Insurance and pension contributions on top of salaries in August while they remain closed. As furlough payments are phased out, there will be no flexibility for casinos to adapt to the new working and leisure environment and I now fear that many thousands of jobs could be lost.

“We made the all necessary preparations for safe reopening and we were given the green light by Public Health England on the basis of the significant investment made by operators, and having been told by the Government themselves that casinos posed a ‘negligible’ risk compared with the tens of thousands of other places that they have been reopened.”

The BGC has also rejected the Prime Minister’s categorisation of casinos as “higher risk” during his Downing Street briefing. On Friday, the BGC inked a letter to Chancellor Rishi Sunak which described the decision to keep casinos closed as ‘highly illogical, inconsistent and deeply damaging to those businesses and the thousands of staff they employ’.

It is estimated that preparations to reopen casinos on 1 August cost £6 million, which included taking staff off furlough, training, security as well as food and beverages. The BGC predicts that it will cost the industry more than £5 million for every week that casinos remain closed.

In a statement, the BGC reiterated that the closure of casinos also results in a ‘significant cost to the UK Treasury, with the cost of furlough and lost tax receipts hitting the public purse to the tune of £10 million per week’.