It has been touted as the battle between money and values. Money because of how much it promises; and values because of the threat they face from the promise of money.

If that sounds hard to figure out, the ongoing debate in Singapore to have a casino is not about acknowledging an open secret. That's been done already.

The real challenge it seems is in transforming an activity long viewed as a vice, by giving it a philosophical make-over, so that it can be cast as a 'virtue'.

Virtue; not perhaps from the standpoint of the country's mores, but of how much money there really is to reap if Singaporeans gamble at home.

That by far, and that only - the issue of keeping the money at home - is the only major argument advanced so far, in the defence of operating a casino in Singapore.

Yet another is its economic growth potential. Estimates are that a casino will add one to two percentage points to the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) if it opens.

With more money sloshing around, it may certainly prove a boon for social programmes and investments and make plenty of people happy. By the same token, it bears the converse of making people worried.

The allure of more money aside, the issue is also a complex dicey game of what to do with all the social ills associated with gambling.

As matters stand, marital collapse and divorces arising out of monetary problems, caused mostly by gambling, have continued to plague the island - even without a casino. With a casino, it stands to reason that, the process of social disintegration may only be hastened, because the gambling impulse in the country is strong.

So strong it is, that the prospect of this 'virtue' creating an epidemic of sorts, triggering a tidal wave of potential suicides is worrying.

Is maturity lacking?

So without doubt, the country is understandably split on the issue.

Split, because the arguments against the casino and its practice of lending without bias, have been so strong, that despite 40 years of progress Singapore has not lost its taste for conservative mores.

Apart from bar-top dancing, which is permitted in selected places in the country, the nation remains true to its conservative colours, not daring to risk new ventures for fear of the unknown and of course, the undesirable.

To what extent casinos are undesirable, was gleaned from an entire cross-section of its people, from social activists to religious leaders and ordinary folks.

Says Mrs Lena Tambyah, an adviser to Asian Women's Welfare Association, "We already have a big problem with gambling. It is creeping through society like a virus. Why turn a virus into an epidemic? An integrated resort is not a place to take your children. It is like telling them: "You can see what I am doing but you can't do what I am doing."

Such sentiments echo not only the general groundswell of resentment, but also the fears that in the rush for revenue, desperation has amounted to clutching at whatever straw.

Though most arguments have been from a moral standpoint against a casino, it begs an exploration of the level of maturity of Singaporeans. Because maturity is an expression of responsibility, the level of its existence is not known.

However, what is known from the frequency of news reports of loan sharks harassing people for debts owing - presumably from gambling - opening a casino in its ideological equation becomes tantamount to opening a Pandora's box.

Religious complexion

Another open secret is of Mammon, as perhaps the country's religious complexion.

Even though casinos exist in other countries they have hardly encountered the firestorms of opposition seen in Singapore. In places such as Buddhist Sri Lanka or Muslim Malaysia casinos exist. The lack of social upheaval in these countries could primarily be the result of precepts people find in their religious ministries.

Secular Singapore, without the benefit of religious injunctions to regulate human behaviour (even abortion is viewed as pro-choice), does not have the benefit of a religious order to buttress against gambling's ill effects. In its place, the worship of money has governed almost everything that people do.

So buried somewhere in the nation's sub-conscious, a religious orientation may perhaps provide a clue to the controversy surrounding the casino issue.

And until a decision is reached on a casino, the money will only continue to flow out at two billion dollars, annually.

JAYA PRAKASH lectures in journalism at FIS Education Centre in Singapore.