Kedah to stop issuing gambling licences next year: Sanusi

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ALOR STAR – The PAS-led Kedah government will neither issue new licences nor renew existing licences for gambling businesses, including all 4D lottery businesses, in the state starting next year.

Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Muhamad Sanusi Md Nor said apart from gambling licences, the state government will also restrict the sale of alcohol in public, and it will only be allowed to be sold to non-Muslim consumers.

“This decision was made at the state executive council meeting last week, and we agreed that local authorities throughout the state of Kedah will no longer issue licences to gambling businesses.

“We want to create Kedah as a gambling-free state because we are aware that gambling is the cause of the collapse of family institutions and the nation’s civilisation,” he said at a press conference today.

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Accept cultural diversity, Tian Chua tells Kedah after ban on 4D shops

PETALING JAYA: The Kedah government’s move to ban all 4D shops has come under fire from political and business leaders, who say it ignores cultural diversity and affects the state’s revenue.

PKR vice-president Tian Chua said the ban shows that the PAS-led state government had failed to acknowledge the cultural diversity of the country and added that it would create a further rift among the various races.

He said the state government was making a “popularist and religious appeal” to compensate for its inability to develop the state economically and provide welfare aid to uplift the lives of the people after the Covid-19 pandemic.

This was why PAS needed to make such “low-level emotional appeal to get votes”, he added.

“Now it is in Kedah. It may become a nationwide policy if the Perikatan Nasional coalition adopts it,” he said.

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