Jordan is considering lifting its longtime ban on casino gambling in a bid to attract more international tourism and to give the country’s flagging economy a badly needed boost.

Last week, Ammon News reported that Jordan’s vice-prime minister Ali Abu al-Ragheb had given a speech at the Amman Chamber of Industry in which he suggested the country should license casinos in popular tourist destinations, including Aqaba and Petra.

The vice-PM insisted that only foreign passport holders would be allowed to access the casinos, with Iranian tourists singled out as the prime pool from which the new casinos would draw their clientele.

Aqaba is situated on the Red Sea, just across the Gulf of Aqaba from the Israeli resort town of Eilat, which just announced that it was considering authorizing between two and four casinos of its own. Like Jordan, Israel currently doesn’t permit casinos, and Israeli religious conservatives aren’t taking the proposal well.