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Sunday, January 8, 2012

Reject Cuomo's call to expand casino gambling

Our view: Reject Cuomo's call to expand casino gambling
By - STAFF REPORT
Observer-Dispatch


Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s call to expand gambling in New York state needs to be rejected. It’s a regressive policy that encourages an addiction that can destroy lives.

Nevertheless, Cuomo said in his State of the State address Wednesday that he’ll push for a constitutional amendment to legalize non-Indian casinos. He said he’d support locating a casino at a place like Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, where he wants to build the nation’s largest convention center. He also suggested casino operations in places like Albany and Buffalo.

State Sen. Joseph Griffo, R-Rome, said recently that he, too, favors allowing more forms of gambling at tracks such as Vernon Downs, and is sponsoring a bill to do just that.

Increasing opportunities for people to gamble will only perpetuate the destructive behavior. Locally, we’ve seen many cases where gambling addiction has caused otherwise decent people to commit crimes to feed their habit. And those are only the ones we hear about.

Still supporters — including Cuomo — see gambling as an economic engine with benefits that would outweigh increased crime and addiction associated with it.

But many of the state’s economists don’t agree. An opinion survey released last week by a New York City think tank found that many economists from the state’s leading colleges and universities agree that casino gambling is a bad bet for New York.

“Legalized casino gambling encourages people to pin their hopes on games of chance that are stacked against them,” said Cornell University economist Prof. Robert Frank. “Those who are determined to gamble will find some way to do so, but why lend government’s imprimatur to predators’ efforts to exploit people who can least afford to bear the inevitable losses?”

Contrary to Cuomo’s contention that the benefits would outweigh the negatives, the survey found that a majority of those responding agreed that casinos are economically regressive. Further, “it is sociologically destructive to the community,” said Mary O’Keefe, a Union College economist.

Research suggests that gambling:

-- Has no long-term positive impact on statewide economic growth;

-- Depends disproportionately on lower-income people for profits and thus imposes on behalf of government a highly regressive and unfair tax;

-- Has employees, but the majority of jobs in casinos are low-wage and low-skill positions.

-- Located within a short driving distance of residents’ households leads to higher incidences of problem and pathological gambling in nearby communities;

-- Causes a “leakage” of dollars from other taxable sectors, such as restaurants, bars and hospitality venues, and thus may reduce revenues from sales and excise taxes;

-- Is an unstable source of revenue because it is highly sensitive to business cycles;

-- Casino revenues are more expensive to administer than other kinds of taxes, in part due to high fixed costs, regulatory requirements and infrastructure maintenance.

In his Wednesday address, Cuomo talked about the jobs casinos could create and revenue they could generate. What he didn’t mention is the lives gambling has destroyed.

That’s something that needs to be considered before we put our money on this idea.

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