British bookmaker and entrepreneur Victor Chandler says the government was right to scrap plans for a Las Vegas-style super-casino in Manchester. Chandler reckons a huge multi-million pound supercasino – with 1,250 unlimited stake and jackpot machines – would have provoked gambling addiction. “The biggest damage I’ve seen to society is in South Africa’s casinos," says Chandler, who moved his entire bookmaking business to Gibraltar in the late nineties to escape betting tax.

ohannesburg - South Africa is soon to become a target for internet gambling operators from Europe as the country's gambling laws are made more accommodating. Online or interactive gambling is still illegal in South Africa under the National Gambling Act, but this situation is about to change with the imminent passing of the National Gambling Amendment Bill. The bill is presently before the national council of provinces, having already been approved by the national assembly.

Victor Chandler, one of Britain's best-known bookmakers, is understood to be one of a group of bookies arrested during the Arc de Triomphe meeting at Longchamps on Sunday for illegally taking bets. The group, including Chandler's nephew and rails representative Butch Beaton-Brown, were caught in a raid on the corporate facility for British racegoers run by Horse Racing Abroad, who take around 1,300 punters to the Arc in Paris every year.