Scheme for super-casino spots

A regeneration scheme is to be announced for the areas which competed to host the abandoned plans for Britain's first super-casino.

Andy Burnham, the culture secretary, is expected to confirm today that while 16 large regional casinos will be built the proposals for a super-casino have been scrapped.

Manchester had fought off competition from London's O2 Arena and Blackpool to host the UK's first Las Vegas-style super-casino, only for Gordon Brown to declare his opposition to the plans shortly after taking over as prime minister.

Though the plans had been predicted to bring in around £265 million of investment to a deprived part of Manchester as well as creating 2,700 direct and indirect jobs, the super-casino scheme was all but abandoned when peers rejected the proposals by three votes.

A spokesman for the prime minister said on Monday he "did not want to pre-empt the announcement that will be made" by Mr Burnham.

But he added: "As we said in July, there was a huge difference in scale in terms of gambling opportunities in a super-casino compared to one of the smaller casinos."

"We had said we would work up an alternative way of providing equivalent regeneration benefits which did not necessarily rely on a super-casino."

Shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt said the announcement illustrated the "mess of the government's gambling policy".

"The original decision on the super-casino now appears to be about nothing more than headlines as the government has pretty much nothing in the cupboard to tackle the growing social evil of problem gambling," he added.

"When will the government understand this is not about the size of the casino but the underlying protections put in place to prevent and treat a social disorder that breaks up families?"

Casinos with up to 150 slot machines holding jackpots of up to £4,000 are expected to be approved in Leeds; Southampton; Great Yarmouth; Middlesbrough; Solihull; Hull; Milton Keynes; and Newham in London.

And smaller casinos are predicted to be announced for the Bath area; Stranraer; Scarborough; Wolverhampton; Swansea; Luton; Torbay; and East Lindsey, Lincolnshire.