Casinos squeeze......

Sent from a friend --- is Massachusetts next? It's in the Gambling Playbook!

This entire site is a very valuable resource for casino opponents.

http://www.getgovernmentoutofgambling.org/

http://www.getgovernmentoutofgambling.org/2013/03/11/casinos-squeeze-west-virginia/

Casinos squeeze West Virginia

Paul Davies March 11, 2013 11:05 pm

Those who support casinos should keep an eye on the gambling industry evolution currently playing out in West Virginia.

First the casino industry spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on campaign contributions and lobbying fees in order to get state lawmakers to legalize gambling. (In some instances, lawmakers get busted for corruption and go to jail.) Then the casinos open and everyone is happy as the states enjoy a spike in tax revenue from the casinos and create some jobs. But the revenue doesn’t do much to lower taxes, improve education or any of the other promised reasons lawmakers used to rationalize their support for gambling in the first place. Often the projections of gambling windfalls are wrong.

Then casinos open in neighboring states and gamblers begin to get tapped out, causing the tax revenue to level off or drop. (See Pennsylvania, Indiana and Atlantic City.) Some casinos are forced to lay off workers.

Then the casino industry and their high-powered lobbyists go back to lawmakers seeking lower taxes and fees.

Since money talks, the lawmakers jump. The taxes and fees are lowered leaving the state with less tax revenue. But the profit margins increase for the casino owners. And isn’t all that matters?

West Virginia has been hurt by increased competition from Pennsylvania, Ohio and Maryland, which have all opened casinos in recent years. So to help the struggling casinos in West Virginia, lawmakers there slashed the taxes and fees they pay by nearly $30 million a year. Lawmakers also allowed the casinos that operate at racetracks to scale back on racing. Never mind the reason, the reason casinos were first legalized there was supposedly to support the racing industry.

This is the playbook the casino industry follows in state after state. (See similar deal in Delaware. Gambling interests are working to lower taxes in New York as lawmakers there debate legalizing commerical casinos.)

As more and more states, legalize casinos, one sure bet is that this life cycle will continue to play out. One big difference: As the gambling market becomes more saturated, there will be less time between the boom and bust. The upshot is lots of loser and a state hooked on gambling.