By Andrew PK Yap

December the 8th might be D-day to some but to me it will be a day to be recalled with sadness. That is the day that the Singapore's government committee will announce the results for the Singapore's Sentosa Integrated Resort.

As far as I can see, all the bids have components that will attract children and youths to the Casino's resort. That to me is an indirect way of promoting the casino.

While youths and children cannot enter the casino the indirect advertisement is for me as bad as promoting smoking to youths and children. The state prohibits children to smoke but neither should cigarette companies promote their products to children and youths.

Some people argue that gambling in many forms are already everywhere. Experts differentiate Casino gambling from other forms of gambling because it is "continuous" gambling.

Lotteries are not continuous gambling. Football betting is not continuous gambling. You bet on a game and wait for the match to end. You might argue that football betting can be continuous if you bet on all the games for that weekend.

There are key differences whereby this piece does not have the luxury to go into. Suffice to say, all the arguments that point to other forms of "evils" already in society does not make casino gambling any less of an "evil."

Many people argue that it is pointless to talk about this because there is nobody save the government that can reverse the decision. The government, they argue might not be able to at this stage even if they wanted to.

This is why I see this as a requiem piece. We as human beings mourn. We mourn when we lose loved ones and we mourn when we see sadness around us. We are only human.

It is precisely because we are human that the casinos around the world and the casinos in Singapore will be successful. Medical research and medical researchers have shown that the product known as casino gambling is flawed.

The product that is casino gambling plays on human weaknesses and cash in on unconscious human behavior. The product is addictive. The product can only be entertaining if people lose control of their prudence.

Products like these must be banned. The entertainment value comes from the harm. You might have noticed that we have not even come to problem gamblers and problem gambling.

When you gamble at the casino, the higher the risk you take, the higher is the "entertainment" value. The fact that you might wipe out all that you have and the fact that you might end up divorced is what makes casino gambling exciting.

It is a flawed product. The entertainment value comes from the harm. There is only one choice to make when it comes to products that is valuable because it is harmful. We have gone past that point. There is only one thing that we can do and that is to mourn.

To keep December the 8th in remembrance as a day for mourning. December the 8th or whatever day it is that the committee announces the results.

The writer is the author of Insights Into Casino and Stock Market Gambling and Speculation. See link below