Last time we could afford to reject a casino because the travel sector was booming and there were lots of tourists coming to Singapore for Sentosa, Zoo, Birdpark etc etc. But now, these places had already lose the ability to attract tourists to stay in Singapore longer. Singapore's economy is quite dependent on tourism and thats the reason why we had such a top-class Zoo which is quite well-known around the world. Since it has lose its ability to attract tourists, we had to think of something else to replace it.
If I'm not wrong, the 2 casinos are not just purely casinos. It's more of a intergrated resort like Crown in Melbourne with a theme park(Genting Bhd. is joining bid with Unviersal Studio's theme park), hotels, restaurants, shopping etc etc. Imagine the amount of money it could bring in if all tourists extend their stay for one more day to visit this resort. Their hotel stay, food, shopping etc etc. It adds up to quite a lot. Not to say the huge amount of jobs that would be generated.
This is just only the economy side. Of course, everyone is concern about the social problems that could arise. When minsmarine said was correct, if one day we really couldn't compete competitively with neighbouring countries and our GDP started to fall until we reach recession. We could have a problem there too. It will be too late to do something by then.
I won't pay $100 just to go into the casino! Haven't go in already lose $100!!!!!!!