Super Casino Bid Fails To Hit Jackpot

Great Yarmouth's bid to host the UK's first Las Vegas-style super Casino is over after it failed to make a shortlist of eight announced by the Government.

But the town could yet bag one of a further 16 licences for smaller casinos with jackpot limits of £4,000 — and one of its closest rivals has fallen out of that race.

Yarmouth was one of 31 councils shortlisted in that category and Southend in Essex, which was seen as the favourite to get a large regional casino in the East, did not make that list.

The eight shortlisted for super casinos were Blackpool, Brent, Cardiff, Glasgow, Greenwich, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield. One will eventually be chosen to host the giant regional gambling venue, with 1,250 unlimited jackpot slot machines.

The Casino Advisory Panel spent the last few weeks examining the 27 detailed bids that had to be submitted by the end of March 2006.

It is due to deliver its final decision to Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell by the end of the year.

The news was greeted in Yarmouth with disappointment but also optimism that the town would still get something out of the deal.

The borough council's chief executive Mark Barrow said: "We are disappointed but we are pleased that we have been shortlisted for a combination of large and small casinos. We bid for regional large and small so we could have one of each.

"There are two casinos in the town already, the Grosvenor on the seafront and the Mint casino in the town centre, so they could be converted. And the independent advisory panel has given us a hint that we have a very strong case. So we will be pursuing that strongly. We knew the competition was extremely strong. We put together what we thought was a very good bid, but it was not to be. It's going to be a unique attraction for whoever gets the one super casino, with a special status, so it would have been quite a prize. Nevertheless we have got a very strong tourist product, including plans for the 200ft big wheel on the seafront."

Great Yarmouth MP Tony Wright said it was especially disappointing because a super casino would have helped regenerate the town.

He said: "We knew as soon as the Government said there would just be one super casino in the country that it would be tough. But we can still get a large casino even if the regeneration benefits will not be as great as with a super casino. And with Southend, which was seen as our main rival for a regional casino in the East, not in the running, we must have a good chance."

Large casinos can have up to 150 machines offering jackpots of up to £4,000, while the smaller versions will be permitted 80 with the same jackpot.

The minimum total customer area for large casinos will be 1,500 sq metres and 750 sq metres for smaller casinos.

Professor Stephen Crow, chairman of the panel, said: "I know that our decisions will cause disappointments to some, not least to authorities who had looked to their casino proposal as a means of alleviating severe problems of deprivation or even improving social conditions and meeting the need for economic regeneration.

"But the competition has been very strong, and so it is inevitable that some proposals, good enough though they may be in themselves, have to yield before more powerfully justified cases. Proposals for large and small casinos will be examined on the basis of written evidence."