Three West Midlands bids are among 27 contenders for Britain's first Las Vegas-style "super-casino".

The National Exhibition Centre - which has been submitted by Solihull and backed by Birmingham - Coventry and Dudley will battle it out with 24 other towns and cities.

Only one area will be allowed to host the giant regional casino with 1,250 unlimited jackpot slot machines.

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The Casino Advisory Panel was said to be "sifting and thinning" yesterday the pile of applications stretching from Newcastle to Newport.

The Gambling Act recently passed by Parliament will allow three new types of casinos to operate in Britain. One "regional casino" will be permitted, along with eight large and eight small casinos.

More than 40 other authorities, including Wolverhampton and Cannock, have applied for one of the eight large and eight small casinos.

Several have applied for more than one type of casino and said they will settle for a lower category to secure a site in their area.

The plans have met stiff opposition from charities and support groups who claim it will lead to an increase in gambling addiction.

And some opposition MPs argue that only one regional casino will not be enough to assess the impact of the plans.

Blackpool is an early favourite to win the super-casino licence, but an ambitious bid to build it at Solihull's sprawling NEC is also considered a front runner.

There was controversy after Birmingham City Council opted to support the NEC bid ahead of Birmingham City Football Club's proposed sports village complex in Saltley.

The Dudley bid envisages creating 3,000 jobs and includes restaurants, cafes and conference facilities in Brierley Hill, while development bosses at Coventry - reported yesterday as trailing behind in getting the message across to MPs - were confident they can succeed in bringing the super-casino to the Ricoh arena.

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell has said the large and small casinos should be in a range of locations including seaside resorts, edge of town developments and inner city centres.

Professor Stephen Crow, chairman of the Advisory Panel, said the process of drawing up a shortlist could take up to eight weeks, adding: "Once we have completed this initial phase of evaluation, selected proposals will then go forward for further examination over the summer months."

Shadow Culture Secretary Hugo Swire said the number of regional casinos should not be increased to plug a black hole in Gordon Brown's finances.

"The impact on problem gambling and the social effects remain unknown. This is why the Government must stick to its promise to a pilot project of one regional casino, so that we can properly assess both the regenerative and the social impacts of regional casinos.

"We discovered in the Budget that Gordon Brown expects to get an extra £95 million over three years from just one super-casino, so it doesn't take a mathematician to work out that another eight or ten casinos would go a long way to filling Gordon's black hole," he said.

"Any decision must be based on the effects of problem gambling and the impacts of gambling and not on helping the Chancellor pay his debts."

Major Bill Cochrane, of the Salvation Army, said the plan for a super-casino would lead to a rise in gambling addiction.

He said: "The Salvation Army remain unconvinced about the amount of research local authorities have done, or have been required to do so far, on the potential social impact of a super-casino, whilst the supposed 'regenerative benefits' are yet to be proved."