While Casinos became Goa’s leading import swiftly converting the State into India’s Casino gambling capital, our matka gambling has now become Goa’s leading export by extending its evil tentacles of human misery thousands of miles in a big way to the United Kingdom. Will it stop there or will it be the stepping stone to other gambling destinations like Las Vegas, Macau or even to the glamour and glitz of Paris.
The Goa Government which wants to secure historical documents from Portugal may also now decide to procure documents from the UK on how Goa’s Matka has been illegally exported and set up shop there.
While in the Opposition the BJP had vociferously branded Casinos as a “social evil” and had called them “dens of vice”. While spearheading that agitation against Casinos, the BJP had vowed to make sure that all Casinos were thrown out of Goa. But in a dramatic U turn in March 2012 after coming to Power, the BJP has gone all out to promote, shield and increase the number of Casinos. Ironically the RSS which sets and gears the BJP agenda is known to be against gambling but their silence on Casinos is deafening.
While the BJP is merrily feasting on the cash flow from the Casinos, the overall damage and menace that is being inflicted on the State and the people by these Casinos is irreversible. Goa has sadly become the country’s gambling hub with the allied vices of Prostitution and the Narcotics trade also flourishing by the day while the Crime rate is escalating.
