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.