On a humid Sunday evening in January in Singapore, Ramesh (not his real name), who comes from a village in Tamil Nadu's Thiruvarur district, was enjoying himself with friends in one of the world’s most expensive casinos, Marina Bay Sands.
Ramesh, a low-wage migrant who works as a cleaner at a food court in Singapore, can contemplate an evening at such a place only because foreigners are exempt from the huge entry charge of 100 Singapore dollars, equivalent to about Rs 4,500, which the government requires the casinos to levy on locals to discourage them from gambling.
While Ramesh watched others bet, some of his friends, also from Tamil Nadu, queued up for free soft drinks. Eqbal (also not his real name), a Bangladeshi national in his mid-20s who works as a furniture mover was there to gamble. That day, he lost money.
"I have played a few times,” said Eqbal, who has not returned home in eight years. “But it is fun to come here even if I don't play or win. There is so much to enjoy in Singapore.”
For more than 40 years, ever since Singapore became independent of Malaysia in 1965, the government banned casinos, a policy that contributed to the city-state’s international image as a clean and secure place, if also sanitised and bland. But in 2010, the government allowed the opening of two luxury casinos, Resorts World Sentosa and Marina Bay Sands, to boost tourism and generate employment.
The Marina Bay Sands complex has a luxury hotel, shopping mall, restaurants, a sky park and a museum, apart from the casino. Its trio of slanting towers, often described as an architectural marvel, overlook the bay. Resorts World Sentosa, located in the Sentosa Island in the city’s south, also has a hotel and tourist attractions, such as a Universal Studios theme park, apart from a casino.
Unlike in Macau and Las Vegas, which have several gambling options for the masses, Singapore’s only two casinos are distinctly high-end, says Ann Brook, co-author of the book ‘Consumption, Cities and States: Comparing Singapore with Asian and Western Cities.’ The shops, bars and restaurants that dot Marino Bay Sands complex are expensive even by Singapore’s standards.
While it is not clear how successful the casinos have been among affluent international tourists, an unintended side effect has the visits of low-wage foreign workers. Their presence in considerable numbers at these plush settings is immediately striking although overall they probably constitute a small percentage of all migrant workers in the country.
“The whole issue is exaggerated,” said John Gee, a human rights activist and past president with TWC2, a support and advocacy group for migrant workers in Singapore. “There are a million of migrant workers in the country. How many of them can be seen at the casinos?”
Singapore’s population stood at 5.47 million at the end of 2014, and this includes citizens, permanent residents and foreigners. The citizen population stood at 3.34 million.
Nevertheless, the unexpected presence of migrant workers in these plush surroundings has triggered a debate on whether the casinos are encouraging them to gamble.
“We have not had workers themselves complaining of addiction to gambling,” said Gee. “An entire community must not be bracketed as reckless gamblers.”
Uncomfortable subject
Casinos and gambling are contentious subjects in Singapore. The government euphemistically refers to the city’s two largest casinos as “integrated resorts”, revealing its discomfort with gambling.
Some MPs requested the government to control low-income foreign workers’ casino outings by imposing an entry fee. But the government declined, saying that it would be discriminatory to either ban their entry to the casinos or impose a levy, as reported in 2012 by a Singapore-based news website called Insing, which is run by SingTel Digital Media.
Foreigners comprise 92% of the 212,022 people who by June-end had signed what are called “self-exclusionary orders”, a social safeguard measure introduced in 2009 as part of a Casino Control Bill, allowing a person to bar her- or himself from the casinos, according to a report released in late July by the government’s National Council on Problem Gambling. But it does not say what percentage of these are foreign workers.
Some employers asked the government whether they could sign these orders on behalf of the workers. Singapore allows employers to “assist” foreign workers to sign self-exclusion orders, according to the term used by the National Council on Problem Gambling’s website.
A thin line divides “assisting” from coercion. “Most workers told us in our surveys that employers forced them to sign the orders,” said Gee. “There is paranoia and prejudice.”
Mohsin Ahmed, who runs a support group for migrant workers in Singapore, said perhaps two to three families in Bangladesh have complained to him so far about workers stopping remittances because they had gambled their savings away.
A report in The Jakarta Globe, which followed up a report in The Straits Times, claimed that some employers who are Singapore nationals sent their foreign workers to the casinos as proxies for themselves, giving them gambling money and promising them a percentage of the wins. The report claimed that these employers threatened to cut the workers' salary if there were losses.
Support groups say that many residents view low-wage foreign workers as eyesores and irritants in settings meant for the elite. While a few may gamble, it is their very presence in these places that sparks anxiety.
Migrant workers
Many low-wage workers visit the casinos not to gamble but out of curiosity. They are places that seem glamorous and different from anything they have seen in their native towns and villages. It is also a way of passing their free time.
A large contingent of migrant workers in Singapore is from Bangladesh, followed by India. Most of the Indian workers are from Tamil Nadu and they work in construction, food services and sanitation.
Migrants from India and Bangladesh work in the lowest-paying jobs, while migrants from China, Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia tend to be employed in semi-skilled positions, according to activists. A worker’s nationality seems to influence the kind of jobs open to him (they are almost all men), activists say.
Indian workers earn up to 20 to 25 Singapore dollars, equivalent to Rs 900 to Rs 1125, a day, according to the 2013 estimates of the support group TWC2.
Singapore's low-wage foreign workers live in poor conditions relative to the rest of the population. This made headlines in December 2013, when an Indian worker's death in a road accident triggered a riot, a rarity in Lee Kuan Yew's country, in the Little India neighbourhood, where Indian and Bangladeshi migrant workers gather in their free time.
Despite these realities, a lack of options at home means that workers continue to come to Singapore. A Singapore-based English daily tabloid, Today, reported in March this year that residents of Tamil Nadu's Ullikottai village, from where many migrate to the city-state every year as low-wage workers, went as far as holding a memorial service to mourn the death of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew at the time.
Suruchi Mazumdar submitted her doctoral thesis in communication studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore in December.
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Ramesh, a low-wage migrant who works as a cleaner at a food court in Singapore, can contemplate an evening at such a place only because foreigners are exempt from the huge entry charge of 100 Singapore dollars, equivalent to about Rs 4,500, which the government requires the casinos to levy on locals to discourage them from gambling.
While Ramesh watched others bet, some of his friends, also from Tamil Nadu, queued up for free soft drinks. Eqbal (also not his real name), a Bangladeshi national in his mid-20s who works as a furniture mover was there to gamble. That day, he lost money.
"I have played a few times,” said Eqbal, who has not returned home in eight years. “But it is fun to come here even if I don't play or win. There is so much to enjoy in Singapore.”
For more than 40 years, ever since Singapore became independent of Malaysia in 1965, the government banned casinos, a policy that contributed to the city-state’s international image as a clean and secure place, if also sanitised and bland. But in 2010, the government allowed the opening of two luxury casinos, Resorts World Sentosa and Marina Bay Sands, to boost tourism and generate employment.
The Marina Bay Sands complex has a luxury hotel, shopping mall, restaurants, a sky park and a museum, apart from the casino. Its trio of slanting towers, often described as an architectural marvel, overlook the bay. Resorts World Sentosa, located in the Sentosa Island in the city’s south, also has a hotel and tourist attractions, such as a Universal Studios theme park, apart from a casino.
Unlike in Macau and Las Vegas, which have several gambling options for the masses, Singapore’s only two casinos are distinctly high-end, says Ann Brook, co-author of the book ‘Consumption, Cities and States: Comparing Singapore with Asian and Western Cities.’ The shops, bars and restaurants that dot Marino Bay Sands complex are expensive even by Singapore’s standards.
While it is not clear how successful the casinos have been among affluent international tourists, an unintended side effect has the visits of low-wage foreign workers. Their presence in considerable numbers at these plush settings is immediately striking although overall they probably constitute a small percentage of all migrant workers in the country.
“The whole issue is exaggerated,” said John Gee, a human rights activist and past president with TWC2, a support and advocacy group for migrant workers in Singapore. “There are a million of migrant workers in the country. How many of them can be seen at the casinos?”
Singapore’s population stood at 5.47 million at the end of 2014, and this includes citizens, permanent residents and foreigners. The citizen population stood at 3.34 million.
Nevertheless, the unexpected presence of migrant workers in these plush surroundings has triggered a debate on whether the casinos are encouraging them to gamble.
“We have not had workers themselves complaining of addiction to gambling,” said Gee. “An entire community must not be bracketed as reckless gamblers.”
Uncomfortable subject
Casinos and gambling are contentious subjects in Singapore. The government euphemistically refers to the city’s two largest casinos as “integrated resorts”, revealing its discomfort with gambling.
Some MPs requested the government to control low-income foreign workers’ casino outings by imposing an entry fee. But the government declined, saying that it would be discriminatory to either ban their entry to the casinos or impose a levy, as reported in 2012 by a Singapore-based news website called Insing, which is run by SingTel Digital Media.
Foreigners comprise 92% of the 212,022 people who by June-end had signed what are called “self-exclusionary orders”, a social safeguard measure introduced in 2009 as part of a Casino Control Bill, allowing a person to bar her- or himself from the casinos, according to a report released in late July by the government’s National Council on Problem Gambling. But it does not say what percentage of these are foreign workers.
Some employers asked the government whether they could sign these orders on behalf of the workers. Singapore allows employers to “assist” foreign workers to sign self-exclusion orders, according to the term used by the National Council on Problem Gambling’s website.
A thin line divides “assisting” from coercion. “Most workers told us in our surveys that employers forced them to sign the orders,” said Gee. “There is paranoia and prejudice.”
Mohsin Ahmed, who runs a support group for migrant workers in Singapore, said perhaps two to three families in Bangladesh have complained to him so far about workers stopping remittances because they had gambled their savings away.
A report in The Jakarta Globe, which followed up a report in The Straits Times, claimed that some employers who are Singapore nationals sent their foreign workers to the casinos as proxies for themselves, giving them gambling money and promising them a percentage of the wins. The report claimed that these employers threatened to cut the workers' salary if there were losses.
Support groups say that many residents view low-wage foreign workers as eyesores and irritants in settings meant for the elite. While a few may gamble, it is their very presence in these places that sparks anxiety.
Migrant workers
Many low-wage workers visit the casinos not to gamble but out of curiosity. They are places that seem glamorous and different from anything they have seen in their native towns and villages. It is also a way of passing their free time.
A large contingent of migrant workers in Singapore is from Bangladesh, followed by India. Most of the Indian workers are from Tamil Nadu and they work in construction, food services and sanitation.
Migrants from India and Bangladesh work in the lowest-paying jobs, while migrants from China, Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia tend to be employed in semi-skilled positions, according to activists. A worker’s nationality seems to influence the kind of jobs open to him (they are almost all men), activists say.
Indian workers earn up to 20 to 25 Singapore dollars, equivalent to Rs 900 to Rs 1125, a day, according to the 2013 estimates of the support group TWC2.
Singapore's low-wage foreign workers live in poor conditions relative to the rest of the population. This made headlines in December 2013, when an Indian worker's death in a road accident triggered a riot, a rarity in Lee Kuan Yew's country, in the Little India neighbourhood, where Indian and Bangladeshi migrant workers gather in their free time.
Despite these realities, a lack of options at home means that workers continue to come to Singapore. A Singapore-based English daily tabloid, Today, reported in March this year that residents of Tamil Nadu's Ullikottai village, from where many migrate to the city-state every year as low-wage workers, went as far as holding a memorial service to mourn the death of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew at the time.
Suruchi Mazumdar submitted her doctoral thesis in communication studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore in December.