Crown and Echo Entertainment argue over who should develop a potential second Brisbane casino Brisbane does not need a second casino, according to Echo Entertainment head John Redmond. Two casinos in Brisbane would be a disaster and would do nothing to help attract much needed domestic and international tourists, according to the chief of Echo Entertainment John Redmond. Mr Redmond, whose company runs Brisbane's Treasury Casino, Jupiters on the Gold Coast and the Townsville Casino, yesterday fired back against allegations by James Packer in the ongoing debate about the city's casino needs. Echo and Mr Packer's Crown group are keen to build an integrated casino and entertainment precinct in Brisbane's CBD in a vacant parcel of government land surrounding William and George streets. Mr Packer, the chairman of Crown Resorts, said Brisbane needed to think bigger. He said the city needed a new large integrated resort and casino development to compete with major Asian destinations to attract tourists and businesses. Premier Campbell Newman will consider all proposals for the site with an initial decision expected by early September. Mr Redmond said allowing two casinos in Brisbane would be a "disaster." "One would do well but the other would struggle and what the city would end up with would be a large resort that was not connected to anything," he said. The Echo chief said Brisbane needed a new entertainment precinct in the city and his company was keen to build it, moving out of the heritage-listed Treasury Casino building on George St in the process. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that Brisbane has and, frankly, we have too," Mr Redmond said. I have looked at a lot of projects in my career in the US and other places and this is one of the most special opportunities I have seen and, because of that, the government is doing all the appropriate things to follow the process for the development of the site. He anticipated a development that included a first-class hotel, which would be one of the best in Australia. The Echo chief also rejected suggestions that Brisbane had a lack of gaming competition. He said there were 200,000 poker machines in Australia, with 47,500 in Queensland, or the same amount as could be found in the entire gambling strip in Las Vegas. So when people say there is no competition in Queensland we have the same amount of pokies as Vegas spread over the state (with many different club and pub owners) so it's hard to say there is no competition. Mr Redmond said Queensland generated $2.3 billion in pokie revenue of which Echo had $133 million. "So, again, there is a tremendous amount of competition in Queensland and Brisbane," he said. Mr Redmond said Echo planned to build "an entertainment destination precinct" that connected to the centre of the city, allowing Brisbane to compete with Australia and on the world stage. He rejected suggestions by Crown that Echo had allowed the Brisbane Treasury Casino to deteriorate with a lack of funding and improvements to the facility. Mr Redmond said the Treasury building should never have been a casino in the first place. He said Echo had for years discussed ways of getting out of the heritage-listed building and expanding to other premises. It is a beautiful building and should never have been a casino. We can't improve things by ripping down walls in a heritage building and we don't want to do that," he said.