Chance of a lifetime?

A Las Vegas-style "Sunset Strip" in the city centre with flashing neon lights enticing tourists to part with their money at a giant casino next to the city's flagship plaza and creating a thousand new jobs.

Cruise liners arriving at the docks will no longer merely off-load their passengers into waiting taxis before they are ferried home.

Instead, when passengers disembark, they will be taken to one of the newly-built top- quality hotels for a stay in the south's premier gaming resort.

For as long as most Southampton residents can remember, leisure chiefs have been trying to re-invent the city as a tourist destination.

But so far, the results have been disappointing. Southampton's heritage centre has yet to be built and the conference trade, while steady, cannot compete with south coast rivals Bournemouth and Brighton.

When it comes to exploiting its heritage, it is widely acknowledged that the city lags behind Portsmouth with its clever and innovative marketing of its naval history.

Yesterday the Daily Echo revealed how Bravo - the developers of West Quay Stage Three - are hoping to build a new super casino in the city centre.

Alongside the long-hoped for £50m arena, a vast casino styled along the lines of the flagship gaming houses in US cities of Las Vegas and Atlantic City would complement the already burgeoning night-time economy.

At the moment, the city already has three members-

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only casinos. The Grosvenor at Leisure World, Stanley Southampton Casino at Terminus Terrace and Harbour House at Town Quay.

They would be dwarfed by the resort-style building which could emerge in the city centre.

The casino would form one of the key elements of the WestQuay Stage Three development.

When finished, the huge project will see a giant 10,000- seat arena.

Inside the arena will be an Olympic-sized ice rink and alongside the arena, a permanent pad that residents and visitors can use all year.

The arena will be built next to a giant plaza which will be able to stage outdoor concerts - as well as providing a place for tourists and visitors to promenade.

Strolling across the plaza, visitors could stay in one of the planned luxury hotels, enjoy top-quality entertainment at the arena and drop in to the casino before eating in one of the range of high-class restaurants which will grace the waterfront.

A precedent for Southampton enjoying a new found status as the south's premier gaming resort can be found in America's Atlantic City.

Just 30 years ago, the city was in decline. Its once smart hotels were a fading memory and visitors had deserted the city in droves for more upmarket destinations such as Orlando in Florida and Las Vegas.

Thanks to a relaxation of gambling laws in the 1970s, the city is now enjoying an unprecedented boom.

Where once there was decay, it has a sparkling strand of 12 hotel casinos including Caesars, The Tropicana and the world-famous Sands.

Millions of visitors flock to the city, on south east New Jersey's Absecon Island, to woo Lady Luck in the casinos where cards shuffle and chips snap 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Around 34 million visitors descend on the city each year - bringing millions of dollars to the economy. What's more, they stay.

Already, Portsmouth Football Club has announced plans for a giant casino to be built next to Pompey's Fratton Park stadium.

The smart money is that before long, both Bournemouth and Brighton will announce their own plans for US-style casinos.

According to the Southampton City Council leader Councillor Adrian Vinson, the casino forms part of a vision which will transform the city into the entertainment capital of the south coast. And it is an opportunity that needs to be grasped quickly.

He estimates that the casino will create around 1,000 much- needed jobs - in much the same way as the giant West Quay shopping development created huge employment opportunities when it opened.

Ameristar - the casino operators - will be forced to provide support services for people who may develop problems with gambling addiction.

Councillor Vinson said: "The cruise line customer should be spending their first and last night enjoying Southampton as a complete "offer" by way of our history and heritage, culture and leisure.

"Southampton should be a premier destination for the long weekend visitor and we need to work with other organisations, businesses and residents to make that happen.

"My vision is not only that Southampton is re-invigorated as a leisure, entertainment and cultural capital of the south but with a range of first class activities that both residents and visitors can enjoy and that we are recognised nationally and internationally as a quality place to live and a quality place to visit."

It is a vision that is shared by business leaders in the city.

Southampton Chamber of Commerce president Stewart Dunn said building a casino could provide the fillip that the city's economy has long been striving for.

He said: "It would be in line with the city's policy and strategy of improving the night-time economy which would include the new arena.

"A regional casino would be extremely beneficial in boosting tourism as well as attracting visitors from the outside.

"It would also be potentially useful for the cruise trade. It would be another reason for tourists to stay in Southampton rather than just passing through it."

His comments were echoed by the Jeanette Wright, manager of Destination Southampton" - the body that links visitors to the city, particularly conference visitors, with available hotel space.

She said: "Obviously, if a casino were to bring people into the city then that would be a good thing.

"At the end of the day, somebody who is going to visit a casino may bring along someone else who would bring business to the city.

"People who come here for business may return for their leisure activities."

But not everyone supports plans for resort-style casinos springing up across Britain's provincial cities.

The government's Gambling Bill which aims to relax gaming laws in the UK and could pave the way for giant casinos across the country has already run into fierce opposition from many MPs - including a sizeable proportion of Labour backbenchers.

The government has pushed the bill through the House of Commons so far. But Labour backbenchers have threatened to rebel if changes are not made to the Bill at the committee stage before it goes for its third and final reading.

Should the bill become law, people would be able to win or lose mammoth amounts of money, with casinos able to stay open 24 hours a day - a situation which already exists in the United States.

It is a prospect that fills some with alarm - not least Southampton's leading churchman.

The Rev Ian Johnson, team rector of the city centre parish, said Southampton could be seen to be "sleazy and second rate" if it was relying on casino money to pay for providing an ice rink and arena.

He said: "It is very sad. On a personal level, I want to draw a parallel with the way we have encouraged binge drinking in the city.

"We are raising a generation who are alcohol dependent. Are we now going to raise a generation who are addicted gamblers?"

Perhaps surprisingly, the leader of the country's biggest business group has also sounded a warning to the government that its controversial shake-up of gambling laws could damage the country's social fabric.

Digby Jones, director general of the CBI, said ministers had a "delicate tightrope" to walk by liberalising laws, which campaigners believe will lead to an explosion in gambling.

Mr Jones said business wanted a free market to operate to help create wealth and jobs and renovate areas of the UK and the "'natural sympathy" would be in favour of industries being expanded.

The CBI leader said he would have assumed that businesses would have backed the building of more casinos.

But during his regular meetings with businessmen and women across the UK a note of caution had crept in because of the possible effect of increased gambling on families, he said.

"People are saying to me that what they don't want to do is put people who cannot afford this into a position where they are harming their own families.''

He added that businessmen and women were making it clear that they did not want to become a "conduit" for social problems.

"It is a very delicate tightrope the government has to walk between employment and damaging the social fabric of the country.

"This could just damage the social fabric."