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Israel and West Bank


The issue of casinos is a long running saga in Israel. There have been a host of proposals over the years but there are still no casinos in the country.


The prospects of a casino opening looked to have improved when Yitzhak Aharonovitch was appointed Minister of Tourism in April 2007. He supported opening a casino to create jobs and as a way to provide Israelis with an alternative to going to casinos in Cyprus and Bulgaria. He wanted to see revenues remain in the country. Aharonovitch, however, resigned in January 2008.


The government has been working out the details of a Bill to allow a strip of casinos in Eilat, a resort town in the south of Israel. It is estimated that a legalised casino industry would draw an additional one million tourists a year to the Eliat area. Eilat has been losing tourists to regional competitors such as Aqaba, Taba and Sharm el-Sheikh, which have casinos.


Casino Semiramis at the Semiramis InterContinental Hotel in Cairo


two casinos. One is the London Club Casino at the Ramses Hilton Hotel and the other is the Caesars Casino in the Four Season Hotel Giza.


French casino group Lucien Barrière has one casino in Egypt, the Casino El Gezirah Barrière within the Sofitel El Gezirah Hotel. At over 500 square metres the casino is one of the largest in the country and offers 13 tables and 35 slot machines.


Genting UK is set to enter the Egyptian market in 2012 too. In December 2009 it was chosen as the operator of the casino that will be part of the Nile Ritz Carlton Hotel (formerly the Nile Hilton) which is currently undergoing renovation.


At the height of the protests in late January the Financial Times’ correspondent in Cairo reported


that some casinos in Cairo has been singled out for attacks. It was even claimed that two people were killed in a firebomb attack on the Ramses casino. It was speculated that the attacks were carried out by Islamic radicals because the casinos symbolised “Western vice and loose morals”. Over the last few decades extremists have attacked western tourists at sites in Egypt but the perpetrators of the casino violence have not been proven.


New impetus for the creation of a casino in Eilat has been provided in July 2010 by current Tourism Minister Stas Mesezknikov who has created a committee to assess the idea. The casino would most likely be part of a convention centre rather than a standalone property.


Any development would be the first casino operated by Israelis, and the first casino in Israel since the closing of the Casino Oasis in Jericho (a joint Palestinian and Austrian venture) in October 2000 due to the second Intifada.


Jericho’s Oasis Casino opened on the outskirts of the city in August 1998. The Palestinian-Austrian project was specifically intended to cater for Israeli


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casino life magazine


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