April 12. 2013 9:29PM
Think tank says casinos are a big gamble
In a study released in March, Steve Norton of the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy, a private nonprofit and non-partisan think tank, said revenues to the state would be far less than supporters maintain. The study said what is known is that the desire for people to gamble increases the closer they are to a casino: 48 percent will have the propensity to gamble if a casino is located within a 30-minute drive; 30 percent, if it's within a 60-minute drive, and 20 percent, if it takes 90 minutes to reach.
No study has been done to determine how much of the money gambled is discretionary income or money that would have stayed in the gamblers' communities if there were no casino, according to Norton.
Norton spoke on, "Rolling the Dice: The Economic Impacts of Casinos on Business & Development," at the annual meeting of the Manchester Development Corporation held at Fratello's.
He said while supporters of a casino in New Hampshire estimate annual revenue to the state of between $80 and $130 million, it all depends on the size of the casino and the investment, whether the casino is taxed at 30 or 40 percent, its location and the competition.
And, he said, Massachusetts is a big factor. The Bay State has already approved three casinos and a racino, and he said, it is guaranteed they will fight back with another casino at the state border if New Hampshire locates one in Salem.
Nearly two-thirds of New Hampshire residents polled recently favored the opening of a casino in the Granite State, according to a WMUR Granite State poll released Friday.
"Legalizing casino gambling is an issue that has been fought over in the New Hampshire for years ...," the poll said. "In recent years, the New Hampshire public has grown more receptive to gambling."
The poll found that 63 percent of those polled favored a casino. Thirty percent were opposed while 7 percent were neutral or unsure. The poll questioned 507 randomly selected adults from April 4 to 9.
Once a casino is up and running, Norton said, New Hampshire can expect more to follow. No state that has approved gambling has only one, he explained.
He said there is a potential for between 200 to 2,000 jobs - which includes some temporary construction jobs - but most would be low-paying.
The study concluded that a $500 million investment in a facility with 5,000 slots would provide the state with $138 million annually, but that would drop to $68 million with competition at Suffolk Downs in Massachusetts. Social and regulatory costs of $68 million would make it a wash.
Gambling proponents maintain the study underestimates revenues, anti-gambling forces say the study underestimated the social costs, Norton said.
The center did a similar study in 2009 for a state commission studying the effects of expanded gambling on New Hampshire. The new study accounted for a 15 percent drop in gambling revenues across the country, inflation and a casino being built near Boston.
Norton said there is not enough information available to say whether a casino would result in fewer people going to the Verizon Wireless Arena for various sporting events and concerts. He said 770,000 people went there for various events in 2003 and only 19 percent of them were from Manchester.
The city is trying to protect its investment in the arena with an amendment to SB 152, which expands gambling in the state, proposed by State Rep. Pat Long, who is also an alderman. It would bar a casino from having an arena with a capacity over 1,500.
Mayor Ted Gatsas said when Mohegan Sun in Connecticut added an arena, attendance at the Dunkin' Donuts Arena in Providence, R.I., went down.
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