Bintan Still Awaiting Approval From Government

By Dheera Venkatraman 2004 - (C) This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

A proposal to create a legal zone for gambling in Bintan is still waiting for approval by the Bintan Legislative Council where it's been stuck since September of last year. Proponents say that a casino resort would compete with the new resort coming to Singapore and attract tourists. Opponents argue that it "will damage local morality" and are lobbying against the proposal. Malaysia's Landmarks Bhd. is hoping for quick approval so that they can build a $3.1 billion dollar resort that they have planned. With many of the councillors straddling the fence on whether to allow development of a gambling zone, no one knows when a decision might be made on the issue.