Nia Niscaya, the ministry’s main expert on tourism, added that gambling in casinos was “prohibited by law, and we are a country of laws so that can’t be done”.

On the same day, Agung Bagus Pratiksa Linggih, chairman of Hipmi in Bali, doubled down on the idea. “Indeed, it is really needed now. Bali’s revenue is around 4 trillion rupiah [US$250.8 million], and Bali has several problems. One of them is waste processing, and we need around 3 trillion rupiah to manage [all] of the waste generated in Bali,” Agung was quoted in media reports as saying.

“If we refer to Singapore, the potential income that Bali will receive [from the casinos] could be up to 12-13 trillion rupiah [US$814.7 million] per year. That’s just from the gambling side, we haven’t talked about hotels, restaurants and also the surrounding economy activities [generated by the casino] and also taxes from employees who work in casinos.”

Trubus Rahadiansyah, a public policy observer with the University of Trisakti in Jakarta, agreed with the idea of legalizing casinos in Indonesia, which he dubbed “a forward-thinking idea as we can increase state income and boost employment.”

“We can build casinos in Bali or Batam. In Malaysia, there is [a gaming hub in] Genting Highlands. Indonesia must have something like that,” Trubus said. Batam is a small island in Sumatra popular with Singaporean holidaymakers thanks to its white sandy beaches.

“So far, the government has been more focused on burdening the poor with more taxes. [The casino plan] is an innovation that is more comprehensive in nature,” Trubus added.

Indonesia has been attempting to economically reinvigorate Bali beyond reliance on its natural beauty. In June, Luhut Pandjaitan, coordinating minister of maritime affairs and investment, proposed to turn the island of 4.3 million into a hub of family offices, potentially injecting up to US$200 million into the economy.

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Bali issues tourism dos and don’ts list in wake of scandals involving unruly visitors

Bali issues tourism dos and don’ts list in wake of scandals involving unruly visitors

If the Bali casino plan materialises, Agung hopes the attraction will be built in poor areas in Bali, such as in the regencies of Buleleng, Karangasem, Klungkung or Bangli – beyond the overdeveloped southern part of Bali, famed for its surfer-friendly waves and nightclubs, as well as in Ubud, a spiritual magnet for foreigners, located in the centre of the island.

To limit the potential negative impacts from a casino, Agung suggested that Indonesians be barred, so only foreigners could gamble. “If that’s what Balinese people are afraid of, then Balinese people shouldn’t play at all, just like in Malaysia, where local people can’t play in casinos.”

Gambling, a Balinese tradition?

Head of the Bali Provincial Tourism Office, Tjok Bagus Pemayun, told This Week in Asia that casinos were “impossible” on the island as “we are already committed to develop tourism based on our culture”.

He said there were other avenues to boost the island’s income to solve a myriad of resource problems, including through the recently introduced tourist tax, under which foreign tourists must pay 150,000 rupiah (US$9.4) before entering the island.

According to Tjok, since the tax was imposed on February 14, the island has collected 182 billion rupiah as of Wednesday, an amount he admitted, however, was “far from optimal as only about 40 per cent of visitors paid the tax”.

A casino would be welcomed by Putu Bayu Mandayana, head of Hipmi in Buleleng, a regency in north Bali boasting stunning waterfalls, temples, and green landscapes, including the picturesque twin lakes of Buyan and Tamblingan.

While its charm is undisputed, lack of access to Buleleng has contributed to it being largely ignored by visitors to the island, as it is about a three-hour drive from Bali airport, according to Putu. Last year, Buleleng was the poorest of all nine regencies in Bali, with around 39,000 poor residents, according to the statistics agency.

“In Buleleng there are still many things that don’t exist yet, there are still many opportunities that can be created here. If this casino turns out to be successful, I hope that in the future it will attract other investors to open something here, whether a beach club, resort, or a supermall,” Putu told This Week in Asia.

He also suggested the government conduct comparative studies in other countries that allowed gambling, such as in Malaysia or Singapore, to determine if a casino in Bali would pose “as an opportunity or a disaster in the future”.

Balinese themselves were no strangers to gambling, Putu argued. The Hindu-majority island has at least three traditional street gambling games, in which money is involved: cekian, a card game commonly played at temple ceremonies; mong-mongan, in which players roll six-sided dices on a flat media with pictures of animals; and tajen or cockfighting, a religious obligation at every Balinese temple, whose purpose is to offer the blood of the losing chicken to the evil spirits.

In Indonesia, gambling used to be legal, particularly in Jakarta under then-governor Ali Sadikin in the late 1960s. Some forms of gambling, such as casino and horse racing betting, were legal to fund the development in the capital, until President Suharto made gambling illegal in 1974.

This isn’t the first time a proposal for casinos in Bali has entered the national discourse. In 2018, Desmond Mahesa, late lawmaker from the Great Indonesia Movement party, established by incoming president Prabowo Subianto, said some tourism industry players wanted to build a casino in Bali, as they claimed that 80 per cent of casino-goers in Singapore were Indonesians.

In 2015, a businessman from Jakarta named Adam Budiharto said he had spent 8.5 billion rupiah to build a casino and five-star hotel in Nusa Penida, a small island in the southeast of Bali, only for the project to fail due to corruption by the island’s former regent.