Government still determined to protect heartlanders

After squashing the free shuttle bus services to protect heartlanders from the evils of gambling at the IRs, the government is considering whether R-rated movies (not XXX-rated, mind you) should be shown in heartland theatres. As Chew noted in his Sunday comic strip, people can still watch porn on the internet. And I hear it is not difficult to find porn on DVDs anywhere in Singapore or Malaysia.

Saturday afternoon I took the train and actually got a seat! That may be due to the fact that I got on at Bukit Gombak, the first station after Bukit Batok, which was closed for upgrading, so a lot of people were taking other transport. Anyway, as I headed north I realized that there is a train station just outside the race track. Isn’t the government concerned that heartlanders can easily disembark there and gamble away their life savings? It is clear that only foreigners’ money is fit to be gambled away.

Which leads me to my latest suggestion, which I am sure will be ignored like all of my other carefully thought out ideas: They should open a room of gaming tables and slot machines at the airport. All foreigners should be required to buy a certain amount (say $100) of chips and gamble them away before clearing customs. If they happen to win any money it can be heavily taxed on the spot.

End of the line

That was fast! One day (or less) after the “investigation” into heartland shuttle buses to the IR was announced, the casino has terminated the service “voluntarily.” However, the buses will still run from the central business district. So all that the aunties and uncles who want to blow their life’s savings at the craps table need to do is catch a bus or train downtown.

According to the ST, the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports announced that it would stop this shuttle bus menace in an announcement made at 1.30am! It’s good to know the government never sleeps. No doubt they wanted to get it in before the paper went to press today. Or maybe the casino found out that most riders didn't go to gamble, and they made a "business decision" to stop the wasteful practice.

Is this really going to do any good? There are long queues of people waiting to buy lottery tickets at supermarkets, 7-11’s, and other outlets island-wide every day. This is a country where people will note down the tag number of vehicles involved in traffic accidents so they can buy those numbers. (I never understood that – I guess the thinking is bad luck for him, good luck for me.) But they won’t be able to go to the IR on the casino’s dime anymore.

There are cruise ships that offer free overnight cruises to nowhere with onboard gambling, and these are supported largely by uncles and aunties. They don’t provide free shuttle buses (that I know of). Still, I think their luck is about to get better.