Casino Budapest attracts capitalist currencies

Press, 13 January 1987, Page 30

Casino Budapest attracts capitalist currencies

NZPA-Reuter Budapest Would Karl Marx approve?

High above the Danube among monastic ruins opposite Parliament, the Eastern bloc’s first casino redistributes wealth from fat Western pockets to the slim state coffers of Hungary.

Casino Budapest has been, very successful in harvesting hard currency — gambling is in West German marks, not local forints — since it opened five years ago. “We got our investment back in two years and four months,” the manager, Sandor Radies, told Reuters in an interview, declining to give exact turnover or profit figures. “We opened a second casino at Heviz on Lake

Balaton in 1984, and now we want to open a very elegant and big casino at Sopron, and another one on the Balaton, probably at Siofok.”

Initial capital of 2.7 million marks ($2.5 million) for the casino (Hungary’s state-owned Danubius Hotels own 51 per cent and Casinos Austria AG 49 per cent) has been raised to five million marks ($4.7 million). Not that this will give the people of this communist People’s Republic more places to fight onearmed bandits or try their luck at roulette, baccarat, blackjack or boule. “Hungarian citizens are allowed to visit the casino with permission but they are not allowed to play,”

Radies says, explaining that Hungarians may possess hard currency to the value of only 2000 forints (about 85 marks, or $B2). “If they were sure to lose it would be okay, but what would happen if they won?” Similar rules apply to people from other East Block countries.

“It could cause trouble for us if citizens from other socialist countries travelling home could take large sums of hard currency with them,” he says.

While he admits there has been criticism of the bar, Radies points out that Hungarians wanting a flutter may bet on horses or lotto. He says the casino is a spur for his fellow countrymen to understand the concept of hard currency.

A casino has been set up in Sofia, capital of Bulgaria, and Radies says other socialist countries may follow.

He denies his casino is an enclave of capitalism. “It is only a business and not a political question,” he says. “We are really interested in money first of all. It is a financial business, not a moral business.”

The new casino planned for Sopron, close to hardcurrency Austria, will bring in more money and create more jobs. Hungary’s two casinos already employ 150, and Buda-pest-trained croupiers are at work in the West and on Atlantic liners.

A former hotelier, 58-year-old Radies has great enthusiasm for his new career in gambling.

He is at work on Budapest’s historic Castle Hill, where the casino atop the Hilton Hotel includes part of a thirteenth century monastery tower, for several hours each day, as well as every night until well into the morning. “It is the most exciting thing for me to know if the casino has won or Mt,” he says. “During the dfcy I mostly give out

money, and in the evening I get it back.” Overseeing the gaming tables, the 40 one-mark slot machines and the whole running of the business, Radies says he wants his casino to be friendlier than what he calls the “industrial casinos” of Las Vegas. Gamblers may count their winnings or repent their losses over a special gypsy meal or a goulash soup. Most of the casino’s customers are tourists. Radies is amazed by the wealth that he sees, much of it in the hands of West Germans .or Americans, his most common clients. One customer turns up regularly with 500,000 marks ($487,500) in his pocket. .“I am a well paid, middle-class manager, but I can hardly understand how a person can lose the price of a Mercedes in a night,”, he says, wincing at the thought.

“As a businessman 1 welcome it, but as a private man I cannot understand it ... It is like a dream.”