Folly to rush into expanded gambling

Folly to rush into expanded gambling

The full report of the New Hampshire Gaming Study Commission should be released in a few weeks, but the commission's draft report raises plenty of questions about gambling's potential impact. Even if permitting slot machine and casino gambling were a good idea - it isn't - to proceed at anything close to the pace gambling proponents would like would be folly.

New Hampshire's gambling regulations are not strong enough to adequately regulate the gambling that exists now, the commission found. That suggests that the structure and expertise necessary to properly regulate a massive new enterprise that involves casinos and thousands of slot machines can't be put in place quickly.

The revenue gains from expanded gambling are neither reliable nor stable. The New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies concluded that the additional economic wealth created by expanded gambling would be small, relative to the state's overall economic activity, and would decline with time. There is also no good method in place to spread that economic wealth. A community with a casino, for example, could reap a huge tax windfall while the cost of educating children and providing municipal services to the casino's modestly paid workers falls on other communities.

The vital question of what economic impact casinos and racetracks with slot machines would have on existing businesses is unanswered. When casinos are relatively isolated, as with Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun in Connecticut, the effect on businesses in other communities is small. But Atlantic City's casinos sucked the life out of existing businesses.

Since visitors and vacationers usually have a relatively fixed amount of money they're willing to spend, it's logical to assume that money pumped into slot machines or wagered in a casino is money that won't go to New Hampshire restaurants, retailers and tourist attractions.

The commission called the proliferation of gambling, should it be legalized, "a deep concern, but one with no clear solution." Once legalized, gambling is almost never repealed. "Absent a constitutional amendment, it may not be possible to prevent proliferation," the report said.

Gambling proponents have been overselling the number and value of the jobs expanded gambling would create, the report said. "Slots-only facilities generally offer the fewest numbers and lowest wages; full-scale casinos offer more and better employment possibilities, though still not at high wages," the commission said.

Big questions remain about how expanding gambling would affect crime rates in the safest state in the nation. Similarly unanswered is the question of how big the increase in problem and pathological gambling would be, and how well the state would address the issue.

The commission's testimony included the findings of what was described as the most exhaustive study on the relationship between casinos and crime ever conducted. The study, which looked at two decades of information, found that all crimes save for murder increased when casinos were opened. Casinos, in counties where one was located, accounted for a crime increase of 5.5 percent to 30 percent.

"Overall, 8.6 percent of property crime and 12.6 percent of violent crime in counties with casinos was due to the presence of the casino," the study concluded. Much of the increase was the result of crimes committed by problem and pathological gamblers.

West Virginia, which relies heavily on casinos for income, has the best-funded gambling treatment program in the nation. Its director told the commission that only 5 to 10 percent of problem gamblers reach out for help. As gambling expanded in West Virginia, the profile of the typical problem gambler changed. The average hotline caller used to be a 55-year-old man. Now it's a woman between 45 and 50. Youth, the program discovered, are two to four times more likely to become problem gamblers than older adults.

Unanswered, too, is the impact the immense spending power of the gambling industry would have on New Hampshire's government. The Legislature is exceptionally large, but the industry's pockets are deep. The money available for lobbying would be enormous. Connecticut's two casinos each spend about $60 million annually on advertising. A fraction of that spending would drown out New Hampshire's tourism budget.

Finally, no one knows how expanding gambling would affect New Hampshire's "brand" as a family-friendly state of scenic beauty and outdoor recreation. Some studies suggest that when gambling is expanded, the area's social capital - time spent serving one's community or participating in church and volunteer activities - declines. Expanding gambling, it's clear, would turn New Hampshire into a different place, a place from which it couldn't return.