Topic: A Resident commissioner stops gambling operators. - page 3. (Read 654 times)

Personal I think it's way too much to take such action, perhaps sanctions can be given from a particular period of time to reduce the rate of gambling activities instead of shutting down gambling business in that area of society with force, it will of course affect the business owners. I might be bias here because I'm from another country I definitely have no clue of what's happening over there or how it happens but in my opinion it's not right to take such action.

There are root causes to crime in every country which is basically lack of vital social provision which I believe can be the real issue but governments when they can't figure out how to escape some budget they tend to push the problem to a sector of the society that has little contributions to social vices hence this action displays an incompetent commissioner looking for an area to show his strength in order not to be considered in active.

I believe everyone head of state knows what is good to their people and what would also save them from distribution, maybe he felt so insecure about the gambling operators who were there and noticed that lot of people are going into some unlawfully things just to raised money to gamble. Things like this can effects a heads of state to speak against gambling or any activities that is promotion such evil or practice within their State or geopolitical zone.

I support the resident district commissioner to go after illegal gambling operators. They are the ones that can contribute to increase criminal activities.

Illegal gambling operators are not bound any rules. They have no regulations. They have no terms of service. They have no gambling operating license. They just operate, they can tamper with the machine to work in their favour always. They can set the unfavourable gambling rules that steal from the gamblers. And these gamblers will not be able to report them because they are not under any regulatory body.

What we need are gambling operators that are regulated by the government. And that do their business within the law.

The decision by the Butaleja District Commissioner to crack down on gambling is a drastic measure, but it may be justified if gambling is indeed correlated with an increase in crime and robbery in the area... There needs to be more research and news on this before making a judgement or not, but one thing is for sure... Gambling operators, often motivated by profit, may not fully consider the impact of their activities on the local community.

Gambling, when unregulated and accessible to all, can lead to significant social and financial problems as the most vulnerable people may fall into debt and subsequently commit criminal activities to pay it off, so cracking down on gambling can be seen as an attempt to address the root cause of gambling-related crime in the area.

This is clearly not the right way to go and I agree that a more balanced approach needs to be found, as I have never seen anyone ban people from drinking alcohol because it increases crime. Gambling can be a form of entertainment and leisure for many, and a complete ban could lead to illegal and less regulated operations, making the situation worse rather than better.

Hmm I guess that's the same as blaming the casino for something you want, isn't it? meaning I disagree that the casino or the agent there is the only root of the problem, because after all I'm sure the agent or casino there does not tell or even force gamblers to continue gambling or tell gamblers to commit crimes such as stealing money to finance their gambling activities,
I think most of us would agree with this statement because after all gambling is nothing more than a choice, meaning that the impact experienced by gamblers has nothing to do with the casino or agent who provides gambling activities there, but it is not wrong for Butaleja to take the decision to close all gambling access there for the safety of its people, but one thing, don't make the provider the wrong party because clearly the ones who are wrong here are the gamblers themselves who treat gambling in the wrong way.

Well if those cases gone to worse and crimes is raising up due to gambling in those places I guess there's nothing wrong with what the resident commissioner implementing since he's just concern about growing crimes in his jurisdiction and he don't want to lower down the bad cases brought up by gambling addiction.

For sure the commissioner do some study or base his decision  on the investigation don so we cannot blame him or say that he is wrong on why he do that action. Since for sure he already see how worst the situation that's why removed the reason on why people commit a crime.

If you are in that place then see if a decline of crimes happening you can say that what he do is effective. But if those unfortunate incident still happen then I guess he cannot pull of those blames to gambling.

what he did was as an “easy” fix it seems like he didn’t want to just put in some effort to actually tackle what was happening and make gambling as safe and harmless as possible for everyone i do not even think he was thinking of the benefits of gambling at all which could have helped his people as well

he just erased the entire gambling industry leaving gambling operators with no chance to even defend themselves and make a living i feel like there should have been a better way to handle this while still catering to all gambling operators, gamblers and those who are concerned with their safety against gambling-related crimes

It might be but if the commissioner has done a case study and able to figure out that it is gambling that's the main reason why there's a surge of thefts and crimes in that area, he has a justifiable action. But if there's a conflict of interest there and he's got the same business from his or relatives then that's not justifiable. IMHO, this is a good action done by him because he's got the initiative to stop them even if they're bringing money to the government. Although the effect of it is much more impactful then.

But I thought before this gambling operators, who mount their machines in that place, start that business, they have some license that gives them a permit to operate around those areas for which they pay levies and taxes. If the commissioner can just give words for those machines to be removed, what happens to the business owners? There should be a legal way to follow up on such a thing and give them a duration for when it can be removed.

The reason is not about gambling why thefts are rampant. It is because many people are jobless and uneducated, hence, they are resorting to this kind of activity for them to survive. If the government will provide them jobs or at least have access to decent jobs, even working for minimum wage  - I believe people will have less time in gambling and thefts will surely go down.

They are seeing gambling activity is the main reason of this unlawful act because people are looking for ways how to earn money. And for them, this is the easiest way - to rob someone to gamble. Give them other reasons to earn and I can say, the stats of stealing will go down.

I don't think Uganda has reached a point where allowing gambling to become widespread makes any sense at all.

If the majority of the population had access to water education and food, then ok. But many people in that country have never had access to proper life quality standards. The government should work on being more social centered rather than corporate centered.

So it's a decision on the right track, so long only as it will be followed by social policies. But I highly doubt it to be completely honest.

surge in theft and crime being linked to gambling? if we start to crack down potential root cause of theft and crime, you will have to stop at least 30 other business before getting to gambling because thieves can decide to operate using any medium that is most convenient with them be it through crypto, POS operators, banks and even through the regular drivers in the environment. well, if the place were gambling activities takes place becomes an hide out for thieves, then i can be in support of such action even though what ought to be done is to do away with the root cause of the gambling which is poverty, unemployment and the hunger that is a major problem of the society, once this is fixed, then with or without a short down on gambling facilities, crime will reduce drastically.

I see it that its a misconception that stealing and other vices arouses from gambling, gambling in it self isn't and doesn't amas to all of those crimes and vices accredited to it, it is only only addicts who get dirty with their habits, working towards helping addicts would have been the best way rather than closing donw casinos.

In poor countries like Uganda of course the gambling activity can lead to a lot more trouble than usual, especially linked to theft and robbery as when poor persons gamble and they don't think that much before heading into gambling and lose money then they are far more prone to vandal acts compared to people who lose money in US and Europe for example. So the commissioner in this case for me has done the right thing to stop gambling activities in a poor country which can contribute to better society and improving their finances rather than focusing on earning money through gambling and a burned dream that you can get rich fast with it. Every business, including gambling is only concerned about profit but the government is there exactly to look over their citizens and if they found out that gambling incites violence it is in their right to stop this violence.

I think the country itself is supposed to be blamed for this and the reason why I say this is because maybe the people over there are living a life below average standard because I feel gambling and poor standard of living results to many crimes and if the government can't regulate that, then they shouldn't pin it on gambling because to tackle the crimes there are certain protocols to tackle rather than banning gambling.

This is another attack on the wrong set of people because gamblers are not the ones committing the crimes around Uganda and other African countries, the rate of corruption among government officials and inflation is the root cause of crimes in most African countries, so why is the commoner attacking gambling businesses, maybe their want to divert attention and blame the wrong thing for the own inability because I am sure that the commissioner is part of the problem of the country that leads to increase in crime.

Shutting down gambling houses won't solve the issue and problem of insecurity it will increase insecurity if there is no place for people to get entertainment like gambling, so the politicians in not right, in this regard.

There's a saying that you shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. According to the source, the commissioner wants to remove gambling machines to stop the increase in crime rates in the areas where gambling is allowed. So instead of fighting gangs and trying to track down and sentence people who commit these crimes they fight gambling because it attracts the criminal element.

Do they really think the element will disappear along with the machines? These people will just move to illegal gambling sites, or turn to mugging people in dark alleys.

Some medications get banned from the market due to heavy abuse by people, some due to their inability to regulate it and control how people make use of it but if were to question who’s at fault here who do you think should be punished? Is it the company producing it? Is it the pharmacist despensing the drug (even if it’s an Over The Counter medication?), is it the government agent that are responsible for regulating the drugs?

The same thing applies here, those gambling agent just want to make money and they can’t start questioning their customers where they go the money they are using to gamble from, and also the government didn’t provide enough jobs if not those gamblers won’t have turned to gambling as a source of income which eventually led them into stealing and since they didn’t find anything and anyone to put the blame on they instead chose the weakest one which were the gambling agents, since those ones can’t oppose them.

That acts won’t stop the stealing it will only increase it since those gamblers that might not know how to operate an online casino will still be on the street and since they no longer have somewhere they can gamble to probably double the little amount they had they’ll now have to rely solely on stealing - that’s what the government doesn’t understand - don’t attack the gambling agents instead provide a means for the gamblers and criminals will use to make a living.

In other words, some guy from a town of 24 000 people, which lies only 1 km from three other towns has decided that closing down a few gambling shops will magically solve the problem and nobody will ever think of walking 1 km instead of 300 meters to gamble in the next town. Also, it will magically stop crime because no way the guys addicted to gambling were stealing stuff from elsewhere too!
Talking about non-sense no news!

This will have as much effect as saying banning gambling in the City of Westminster will stop gambling in London.

From by personal point of view, kicking out gambling and betting operators from a town will not guarantee there will be an increase in the quality of life of those who life there, in the end those who decide to continue to gamble will always find other ways to avoid doing it at broad daylight, they go underground.
Instead attacking legitimate businesses, the mayor of a town which is facing economical problems should instead tackles the root of those economical problems: lack of employment, access to education, investment into infrastructure, anything which create wealth or added value to the resources and people of the nation themselves.
If we are talking about people who is willing to mug others for the sake of their addiction, restricting places to bet won't stop the problem completely.

Though, we must recognize, nobody within an economical position in which is considered to be poor should engage in gambling to begin with, but there is no way to stop the poor from gambling.