To avoid causing further snoozing on this topic, I request only that one read other opinions, facts and research BEFORE supporting expanded gambling as a sensible consideration, as Middleboro should have done.
The chief casino cheerleader in this tale, the "Go To" Guy has been Clyde Barrow, about whom much has been said --
Monday's Casino Hearing -- and Clyde Barrow's "Pseudo Facts"
Casinos: On Numbers and Pictures, Part 1.
Why the argument for casinos in Massachusetts ain’t nothing but a mathquerade
From that article --
"Such studies [of the economic benefits of legalized gambling] often overestimate benefits and underestimate costs," says a survey conducted by Harvard's Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston in 2005. Notably, its authors found "little difference between employment rates" in communities with casinos and communities without them.
"Predictions done before [casino] development are notoriously inaccurate," argues the 2003 report of the Rhode Island Special House Commission to Study Gaming.
A comment on the article raises the separate issue of Indian Gaming (both CT casinos are operated by Native American Tribes under IGRA), which was the initial scenario proposed in Middleboro before 2 SCOTUS decisions eliminated that possibility (it should be noted that casino investors still own the property) --
Indian casinos in Mass.
Execelent[sic] article. You probably should have mentioned that the court created doctrine of Indian tribal legal immunity allows these Indian tribes (some with only one or two members) to open and operate gambling casinos and other businesses without complying with state and local laws (except liquor control laws). Thus the public has no protection from injury, being cheated, false advertising and unfair and deceptive businesses practices. Nor is their any federal agency that polices and monitors every day operations of these casinos. Once the right to class III casino gambling is extended to anyone in the state then any "Indian tribe" can claim they too are entitled to have a casino in Mass. Workers have no right to be protected from injury, harassment, discrimination, whistleblowing or any unlawful termination. Communities have no protection from the many laws that protect the environment, health, welfare and quality of life including campaign practices, open government and public disclosure of conflicts of interest, limitations on campaign contributions, etc. So beside all of the negative impacts on the economy caused by the millions of dollars in losses by thousands of gamblers and the high costs of increased demands created by gambling casinos on all public services and infrastructure, these Indian casinos and business pay no property taxes, sales taxes, state income and corporate taxes, bed taxes, etc. The federal income taxes the tribal members pay and the income taxes payed by the employees in mostly low paying jobs don't come close to offsetting the losses to other non-Indian businesses, sports and entertainment venues and charities in the community and the loss of tax revenue to state and local governments. Perhaps most importantly are the host of social problems created by the many gamblers losing money they cannot afford to lose at the nearby convenient casinos. Divorce, family neglect, foreclosures, bankruptcies and repossessions, crime, traffic, even suicide by those addicted gamblers who cannot live with having lost everything or perhaps have stolen or embezzled money to keep up their gambling addictions trying to win on unregulated, uninspected slot machines with little likely hood of winning anything substantial over time..
Isn't it time to insist on a Blue Ribbon Commission that is impartial to consider the facts?
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