Though avarice is addressed in The Bible, gambling is not expressly discussed. Nevertheless, and again taking guidance from writers and thinkers in such matters, it can be interpreted as being contrary to The Tenth Commandment, the one that has to do with covetousness. Moreover, it can bring on sloth, a further Deadly Sin, because it destroys the work ethic. In broader, non-religious terms, but ones nonetheless raised by theologians, gambling can be seen as bad governmental policy. It undermines morals and invites corruption**.
The Spanish newspaper "La Razón" headlined its article about the Eurovegas project in Madrid being dropped thus: "La avaracia de Adelson trunca Eurovegas". Literally, this means Sheldon Adelson's avarice truncates Eurovegas. A better verb than truncate might be sink, but whether truncated or sunk, the consequence is the same: 30 billion dollars will now not be invested in Eurovegas and complementary "integrated" resort projects in the Spanish capital.
The reason why "La Rázon" (which means "reason") has spoken about avarice is that demands which the Las Vegas Sands Corporation had made on the Spanish Government in return for its 30 billion dollar largesse were unacceptable. In financial terms, they were the payment of lower gambling taxes and guarantees of financial compensation in the event that future governments alter legislation which proves disadvantageous to the company. Even had the government been willing to consider the latter, it would have run up against a problem with Brussels. The compensation clause was a non-starter.
The demands were apparently non-negotiable and had also been introduced late on in negotiations. It seems almost inconceivable that the company wouldn't have been aware of European competition law which would have made the compensation demand impossible. Maybe it was unaware, but a conclusion that might be drawn from this demand is that the company either got cold feet about the Madrid project or saw less restriction elsewhere. Las Vegas Sands is looking at Asia as somewhere to pursue its "integrated" gambling resorts, and in Asia there might also not be a similar problem to that in Spain regarding smoking. The company had wanted the smoking ban not to apply to Eurovegas, another demand that was always going to pose a potential problem.
Or had it been the case that Las Vegas Sands would have thought that Spain was that desperate for investment that the government would simply roll over and say yes? It's doubtful. The project would have meant huge money but even Spanish governments have to abide by some rules and to be seen to be at least partially even-handed; it couldn't start making a massive exception on smoking without raising an equally massive objection from all sorts of business sectors across the country.
But, and here one comes back to the Deadly Sin, there is what avarice can inspire, i.e. a manipulation of authority. Perhaps "La Rázon" had adopted a rather more philosophical attitude to its definition than just plain material gain. The demands, it could be argued, were an attempt at manipulation. Then there is the notion that gambling can invite corruption, and here the Eurovegas story gets that bit murkier. A judge, José Manuel Gómez Benitéz, said some time ago that Eurovegas would be a "source of corruption", and let's face it, the last thing that Spain and its government need right now is any further whiff of that.
There were rights and wrongs associated with the Eurovegas project, some of the latter expressed by the Church. It may not have gone down the Deadly Sins line or even invoked The Tenth Commandment, but it is not exactly well disposed to gambling. One does have to wonder if the Church, and the ruling Partido Popular has sought to shift Spain back to more traditional Catholicism, might have been bending some ears at government level.
Even if it had, 30 billion dollars weren't to be sniffed at. Projects of such scale do not come along every day: 11 million tourists annually, most of them well-heeled you would think, 250,000 jobs. These are a lot to lose, though it had been argued that most of the jobs would have been low-paid. Maybe they would have been, but then jobs in the tourism industry tend to be low-paid; they are still jobs and they are still paid.
Las Vegas Sands may have sought to extract pounds of flesh, but one fancies there is more to the project truncation than this alone, and some of it will be on the government's side. The media will blame Sheldon Adelson and his alleged avarice, but has there been a different Deadly Sin at play? Pride perhaps.
** Kirby Anderson from https://bible.org/question/why-gambling-wrong
Photo sourced from "La Vanguardia".
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