Number's up for super casino

It didn't take long for Gordon Brown to start sawing the legs off Tony Blair's legacy.

And the first one on the rubbish heap is the ludicrous idea that you can regenerate an area of abject poverty by sticking a great big casino in the middle of it.

It was the ideal target for our new Prime Minister: the famously prudent Iron Chancellor is the son of a Church of Scotland minister and was never going to be a big fan of gambling.

A super casino could just about be understood in Blackpool, with its traditions of seaside holidays and bingo. But to stick it in Manchester, with its inner city crime, was just asking for trouble.

Good sense appears to have prevailed, and all bets are now off as far as that plan are concerned.

We have yet to find out how Mr Brown's distaste for gambling will effect the other, smaller, casinos that were part of the overall scheme.

Certainly, strong arguments can be put up for siting a casino at Solihull, and in Wolverhampton the planned racecourse casino, or "racino", forms part of a cohesive project including expansion of the existing hotel and conference centre.

It is one thing to build on existing projects. But to try and flag up gambling as some kind of cure for deprivation was always a distinctly dodgy bet.

For all the jobs created at gambling houses and hotels, a casino is a machine designed to part people from their money – all too often from those who can least afford to lose