The Rat Race to the Bottom

From a regular reader and friend --

Please read “KEEP GAMBLING OUT OF REGION”

Sound familiar?

The expansion of legalized gambling is no longer a “Tale of Two Cities”. It has become a tale repeated in almost every state in the eastern US.


Gambling is not meeting the high expectations of revenue return. It also comes with the bad side affects of gambling addiction. And to put the cherry on the frosting, Congress is pushing the ultimate red button “legalizing on-line gambling” like it is as inevitable as death. And as we have seen, Barney Frank is leading the charge! And just how does that fill that void we constantly hear about “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs”? Federal stimulus money to build casinos and racinos?


Knowing President Obama’s position (and I admire him for it) when it comes to discretionary family spending being responsibly used to save for your child’s college fun instead of blowing it in Las Vegas, I have a real hard time believing that he is going to knowingly direct federal spending towards the creation of more gambling venues or to mitigate their impacts. His disdain for this industry is almost as obvious as that to what we witnessed from Mayor Lang of New Bedford at our meeting with him, last week. The Mayor would take an auto production plant or some sort of technology related job creator any day of the week over anything that has to do with gambling. Here are two great leaders with optimistic and yet logical views towards our nation’s future.

If some out of touch politician thinks that he or she has found the silver bullet to ending their revenue shortfalls and jobs creation, then invite them to join the rat race that states like NJ, WVA, OH, Al, Pa have all gotten themselves into. Reminds me of the old joke about selling watermelons at below cost out of the back of trucks and the remedy to making profitable being suggested is “we just need to get us some more trucks”!

When I hear a politician use the lame excuse that “we have no other choice, I can’t see any other industry that we can attract to our region”, my response is, please put that on your next campaign slogan. Include in it that you the incumbent challenger are a real visionary.

Good luck with that!