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Goa Casino from first
week of January 2001

The first live floating, gaming casino of Asia will commence operations in Goa from the first week of January.

The Advani Pleasure Cruise Company Ltd will operate Goa Casino, a joint venture between Advani Hotels and Resorts (India) Ltd and Casino Austria International, aboard the 215 feet long The Caravela, a specially built ship worth Rs 110 million.

"It is a dream come true for us," said chairman Sunder Advani, as the state government finally agreed to change its act of allowing only off-shore electronic gaming to live gaming in December last year.

The ship, named after the first Portuguese ship that came to Goa in the 16th century, has four tables of American roulette, six tables of Black Jack, a table of Paplu (Rummy in India) and eight electronic slot machines, besides private gaming rooms.

After paying a one-time deposit of Rs 5 million and a similar amount towards licence fee annually, Goa Casino will charge an entrance fee of Rs 1600 for morning sightseeing cruises (10:30 hours to 16:30 hours IST), Rs 3000 for sunset cruises (17:30 hours to 21:30 hours IST) and Rs 4000 for dinner cruises (2200 hours to 0600 hours IST).

While half the amount can be redeemed as chips that can be played at the casino, gamblers will be provided meals on board, with soft drinks and beverages.

"Though not in size, it definitely has the glamour of La Vegas," claimed Narinder Punj, a director representing Casinos Austria, which has an experience of operating 200 casinos in 24 countries and aboard 80 luxurious cruise liners.

The ship, built with imported fire-retardant interiors also houses a lavish restaurant with multi-cultural cuisine, a bar, a barbecue area on the top deck, sundeck entertainment and a swimming pool. Two suites and six rooms are also provided for guests staying overnight.

Besides gaming, the cruise that can accommodate 300 gamblers will take them for backwater sightseeing from Vasco harbour to the Renaissance Goa resort at Varca beach and a halt at Grand island, opposite Vasco city.

According to Advani, this will attract a ''different element of people who never come down to Goa'', helping the state economy as well as hotels suffering due to only 'backpacker' foreigners coming down to the tourist state.

Though the state authorities have made no legal provision to ban locals from entering the offshore casino like Nepal or put any ceiling on the lowest amount of entrance fees to be charged, Advani claims that it would not attract local crowds ''since the fees are quite high''.

Besides attracting foreigners for the morning sightseeing cruise, he is expecting Kathmandu-going Indians who are in search of an alternative after the Kathmandu hijacking and banning Indian currency of Rs 500 denomination.

While he admitted that he was keeping his fingers crossed over the possibility of Asia's first casino raising a controversy once again, Advani was quite happy that Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has welcomed the casino. "In fact, the Bharatiya Janata Party granted us permission for the Panaji jetty last month," he said.

As few Goans were aware of the proposal of a full-fledged casino being cleared by the former coalition government of Francisco Sardinha and the BJP, state-wide protests over it once again however cannot be ruled out.

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