slight credit in regard of attracting considerable foreign tourists to
visit Singapore, many professional analysts and residents in
Singapore believe that the far-reaching development of non-gaming
attractions certainly plays a significant role. In other words,
Singapore has taken a different approach in connecting the developments
of tourism and gaming industries and put more emphases
on the influences of non-gaming attractions (such as the
world's only night-time Formula One race, Universal Studios theme
park, Bollywood shows, and fashion events) inside and outside the
Integrated Resort Casino. Thus, non-gaming attractions allow
Singapore to differentiate itself from Asia's casino capital of Macau
by strategically developing Singapore as a family tourism destination
rather than Macau's heavy dependence on the exclusive revenues
of gambling or gambling-hotel complexity (Reuters, 2013).
Therefore, when comparing the correlations between the residents'
viewpoints and the residents' different social backgrounds between
Macau and Singapore concerning establishment of casino gambling,
it is necessary to acknowledge the influence of external forces (such
as managerial styles of governmental administration, developmental
stages of the gaming industry, and collective values of moral
education).
Future research should explore whether the differences in social
structures, culture, and established lifestyles between residents of
Macau and Singapore, which may be influenced by their similar
ethnic traditions and external economic-political interference, have
led to differences in the residents' viewpoints toward the impact of
casino gambling. Thus, hypothesis three in this study was partially
justified.
5. Conclusion
Although they are somewhat different in terms of forms, purposes,
and executive processes, gambling behaviors in both the East
andWest have existed for a long time (McMillen, 1996). In addition,
since ancient times,many people have flocked to any place related to
the activities of gambling (Vittachi,1994). In fact,without considering
ethical, political, and religious influences, the establishment of casino
gambling is one of the fastestways to stimulate the tourismindustry
(Ian, 1995). Thus, many governments (e.g., Japan and Vietnam) that
consider tourism development a policy objective have enlisted the
establishment of casino gambling as a noteworthy choice. As indicated
by Wan (2012), people (the residents of Macau) accept every
benefit fromcasino gambling but unavoidably encounter its negative
impacts. Therefore, the development of casino gambling definitely
triggers intricate emotions in the minds of local residents. For
instance, Lee et al. (2010) demonstrated that the perceptions and
attitudes of residents fromdifferent communities towardthe impacts
of casino development reveal certain degrees of differentiation. For
that reason, the result of this study, themainpurpose ofwhichwas to
examine whether the attitudes toward the impacts of casino
gambling of the residents from two mostly Chinese regions with
different stages of developmental history (Macau's long history vs.
Singapore's fresh history) have significant differences, would
contribute some meaningful values to many fields.
Although the findings of this study, which included questionnaire
surveys and statistical analyses, can justly support the
research hypotheses, the researchers also noted some research
limitations. First, because the contexts of the survey questionnaire
used in this study are modified from those described by other researches,
some dimensions of the modified questions (in particular,
only three questions were related to the attitudes and participations
of the survey respondents) have certain limitations. Thus,
some improvements can be made to this study. Second, most of the
questions associated with social, economic, and environmental
impacts were examined from the perspectives of individual