Katmandu’s Casino Nepal : New Shrine Luring India’s Rich, Poor

India’s new rich and the old poor are flocking to Katmandu, the capital of the world’s only Hindu kingdom, for a different kind of pilgrimage.

The attraction is not the Katmandu Valley, the abode of Hindu gods, but Casino Nepal, the shrine of roulette and blackjack tables and one-arm bandits.

Tourism officials and casino owners as well as prospering hoteliers agree that the casino has encouraged tourism from one poor country to another.

Indian tourists, some dressed only in slippers, pajamas and collarless shirts, and women holding babies in one arm and pulling the one-arm bandits with the other, are faithfully answering the call of the casino.

No Dress Code

“We have done away with the dress code here,” said the casino manager, a Filipino, who refuses to give his first name, saying, “Call me Mr. Boyd.”

Thanks in part to that, villagers from Bihar, a desperately poor state adjoining Nepal, and elsewhere are coming in with their savings to play games they have never seen before.

For most it is the first visit to the unreal world where tables churn out money but mostly swallow it.

The casino, within Nepal’s leading five-star hotel, the Soaltee Oberoi, was opened 11 years ago but was initially aimed at tourists looking for a relaxing evening after doing the rounds of the temples and other sights.

New Customers

But a couple of years ago the casino began to look for customers among neighboring India’s 800 million people.

Boyd, who would not reveal the casino’s turnover or profits, said the response was enormous and that he made it even more attractive by offering free-play coupons to Indians coming on package tours.

Soon planeloads began to descend on Katmandu. The new rich came in with bags full of rupees and the poor trundled in on buses. Nepal is the only country to which Indians can legally carry Indian money, and it is freely convertible here.

Boyd estimates that 60,000 to 70,000 tourists, mostly Indians, visit the casino each year. For their convenience, all games are played with Indian currency.

Eye-Opener for Agents

“We started the packages (that included free-play coupons) and it opened the eyes of travel agents about the Indian market,” Boyd said. “Earlier we were looking at Europe and the U.S., and here next door we had the huge Indian market.

“The free coupons are to bring people in. Most do not know how to play.”

The idea, he said, is for the tourists to eventually use their own money to stay and play in the casino. And they do.

The ignorance is of a high level.

One evening an Indian playing blackjack had winning cards--an ace and a king--and he insisted on taking yet another card to the bewilderment of other players.

The next day another Indian player had a blackjack and he wanted the cards split. He was shouted down by other players.

Bad Luck, Neighbors

A Singaporean Chinese lost $20,000 one evening and the next day blamed his bad luck--and the players who joined him at the table.

So popular has been the casino that Indians with “black” money come in to launder their undeclared and untaxed wealth.

“There are many who want us to give them certificates that they have won the money. But we don’t encourage them,” said Boyd, who admits being approached by Indians looking for ways to legitimize their undeclared wealth.

“We don’t issue certificates and I usually tell them they would have to pay taxes in Nepal if we did,” he said.