A Little Bit Of Las Vegas... In Ireland

After 3,000 job applications had been received for the 266 vacancies made available by the opening of a new Tesco store in Naas, Co. Kildare, Ireland at the start of November, the supermarket chain announced they were no longer accepting them.

Reports suggest over 6,000 CV’s finally arrived through the letterbox of the Tesco human resources department. It simply confirmed Ireland is in a hole deeper than the Grand Canyon… in every sense.

Unemployment is running at 13.6 percent in Ireland, it is in hot pursuit of the 14.4 percent boasted by Nevada, the State with the highest number of unemployed in the US.

The disintegration of the gambling industry in such hotspots as Las Vegas and Reno has sent unemployment soaring and, amazingly, it’s estimated 65 percent of Nevada’s home owners owe more than their house is worth.

The collapse of Ireland’s economy may revolve around the property market – there are now 250,000 vacant houses in the country – but, at this moment in time, the analogy with Nevada could not be more apt.

This month a project featuring a 6,000 square-metre casino – amongst a resort consisting of a five-star hotel, a 7,000 capacity greyhound and horse track and an underground 15,000-seat entertainment venue – to be built in Two-Mile-Borris, a County Tipperary town currently boasting two pubs, two shops and a population of 502, was given council approval.

Alarm bells immediately ring as casinos are illegal in Ireland. They do exist but operate in a grey area of the law as private members clubs. Not a safe place to reside when planning a €460 million project.

Geographically Two-Mile-Borris is five miles from Thurles, a place where you can currently buy a three-bedroom house on an acre of land for €80,000 (£69,500). It is a town which would presumably have to close their existing horse and dog tracks. The latter was given a brand new grandstand in the late 90’s incidentally.

Admittedly this is a centralised location being an 85 minute drive from both Limerick and Cork. With Dublin taking an hour-and-forty minutes to reach, you could say it is close to everywhere with nowhere being even closer.

It certainly does not compare favourably with the ten-minute taxi drive from Las Vegas International Airport to the hotels on the Las Vegas Strip.

It is easy to make such comparisons between this proposed project and the Vegas resorts. 6,000 square-metres of gambling floor gives the Two-Mile-Borris venue almost twice as much space for slot machines and gaming tables than that on offer at the fabled Golden Nugget. It has 2,345 reasonably priced rooms to facilitate its gamblers.

It is also bigger than the Tropicana which has a 4,600 square-metre gaming floor and 1,658 rooms. On average Las Vegas hotel and casinos have four rooms for every 10 square-metres of gaming floor.

The relationship between gaming space and room space is all important as Two-Mile-Borris – such a strangly named place and even stranger if it enters the commonly spoken English vocabulary alongside “Vegas” evoking images of bright lights, showgirls and high stakes gambling – has plans for just 500 rooms although it will feature a 6,000-space car park.

It is therefore safe to assume the market research, conducted on behalf of developer Richard Quirke whose brainchild this project is, has concluded domestic day visitors will be their key customers.

It is conceivable, if not surprising, that Ireland’s 4.5 million inhabitants will flock to the Two-Mile-Borris resort which during an average November will receive 26 days of rainfall. That figure drops marginally to 23 rainy days per-month during mid-summer.

But it was equally surprising when a casino attached to the massive Citywest Hotel & Leisure Resort on the outskirts of Dublin closed its doors after just one month in business. t was not the first casino in the capital to have seen its roulette wheels spin for the final time.

Granted, other casinos do remain in Dublin headed by the Dermot Desmond owned, centrally-located showpiece Sporting Emporium. It opened in 2005 at a cost of €5.5 million. Last year it was reported as having €3.88 million in accumulated losses having never had a profitable year.

Admittedly throughout the country there are numerous micro-casinos featuring a single blackjack table and one, possibly two, roulette wheels which are opened between the hours of 9pm and 5am.

Subsequently there are grounds for reservations about the profitability of any casino featuring more than a handful of gaming tables in any part for the country. I would be amazed if an independent feasibility study, requested by those in a position to rubber stamp this project, is not in agreement.

However, in these recession ravaged times gift horses are not looked in the mouth. Ironic when supporters of the Two-Mile-Borris project include Horse Racing Ireland, Coolmore Stud, and trainer Aidan O’Brien!

And when chief lobbyist for the project, Michael Lowry the TD (MP) for the Tipperary North constituency, announced “finance for the project is not an issue and it would not require any state aid or grants” no one posed the obvious question as to where exactly the €460 million budget will come from.

Of course with the promise of 1,000 construction jobs for a period of three years and 1,500 to 2,000 permanent jobs thereafter few seem to care.

Let’s hope Quirke, who is a former policeman from Thurles and best known for running an amusement arcade, Dr Quirkey’s Good Time Emporium in Dublin, knows something about the Irish casino market that others don’t.