Gambling Industry's Revolving Doors

Senator Baddour has done nothing to assuage the well deserved public cynicism that surrounds Beacon Hill.

From: Can't ignore gambling industry's revolving door
Hampshire Gazette
http://www.gazettenet.com/category/opinion

Gambling Industry's Revolving Doors

Massachusetts state senators denounced a proposed casino bill amendment that would have required lawmakers to wait five years after leaving office before taking a gambling industry job. “We are contributing to cynicism in government,” Senate President Stanley Rosenberg complained. But there’s more than enough evidence that it’s not just cynicism but reality that required that ban. Throughout the country, former politicians who supported state-sponsored casinos have personally profited from their actions.

Here are just a few examples: In Illinois, former governor Jim Thompson, former Senate President Philip Rock, former House Majority Leader James McPike, who had all been instrumental in pushing a casino bill through the legislature, became lobbyists for casinos after leaving office. Shortly after Stephen Perskie, a former state senator who drafted the law that legalized the Atlantic City casinos, left his post as Chairman of New Jersey’s Casino Control Commission, he become a vice-president of Players International casinos.

If our Senate is so intent on ignoring the danger of this revolving door with the gambling industry, I am willing to give any of its members 2 to 1 odds on a $100 bet that within less than two years after passage of a casino bill, former Massachusetts lawmakers will be working for the industry.

Robert Goodman is the author of The Luck Business and was Director of the United States Gambling Study at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (funded by the Ford Foundation and the Aspen Institute), and the former Director of the United States Gambling Research Institute (funded in part by the MacArthur Foundation). He is Professor Emeritus of Environmental Design at Hampshire College.

Robert Goodman
Professor of Environmental Design
Hampshire College
Amherst, MA 01002




If you haven't read "The Luck Business," it is highly recommended.

The Professor highlights all of the reasons "Casinos" [Slot Barns] make no economic sense.

Although it's out of print, it's available on Alibris.

Editorial reviews of The Luck Business: The Devastating Consequences and Broken Promises of America's Gambling Explosion
Publishers Weekly, 1995-08-21
Americans legally gambled almost $400 billion in 1993, according to Goodman, who headed the United States Gambling Study of 1992-94. He asserts that the gambling industry produces no product and siphons off money not only from retail businesses but also from manufacturing. He claims that gambling interests have enlisted the support of governments by holding out false hopes to legislators and other officials eager to find new sources of income without raising taxes. These hopes convince voters that gambling is a major contributor to funds for the ``four E's''?education, environment, the elderly and economic development?which, Goodman asserts, it is not. As governments seek to increase revenues, they have turned to ``convenience gambling,'' installing slot machines in retail businesses, bars and restaurants. Believing it would be impractical to outlaw gambling altogether, Goodman (After the Planners) offers suggestions for a ``rational gambling policy.'' But in answer to the question, does gambling as a strategy for economic development really work, he warns: don't bet on it.