Desperate & Amoral CEO of Caesars Rips Opposition

Loveman? The Amoral CEO who dismisses GAMBLING ADDICTION, ignored that 90% of Harrah's [now Caesar's] profits came from 10% of their patrons, and has mired Caesars so deeply in debt, their stocks have tanked and they're a hair's breadth from bankruptcy [according to some].......

Gary Loveman is DESPERATE! And the great community activists and organizers have spread the FACTS about Predatory Gambling and made this arrogant clod realize he may LOSE!

Suffolk Downs partner rips anti-casino 'hysteria'

September 27, 2013,

(NECN: Peter Howe, Boston) - If Suffolks Downs winds up winning the eastern Massachusetts casino license, the billion-dollar "destination resort" casino with a horse track will have a Caesars Entertainment name on the outside.

Caesars CEO Gary Loveman, participating in a National Association for Business Economics forum Friday at the Boston Public Library with problem-gambling expert Rachel Volberg of the University of Massachusetts School of Public Health and Health Sciences, lamented what he called anti-casino "hysteria" and predicted a Boston casino could be wildly popular with international visitors.

Loveman argued that compared to other kinds of legalized vices, gambling gets way more social-impact scrutiny, unfairly so, complaining about "the tremendous level of concern, I guess I would say in some cases hysteria that surrounds the notion that there might be three or four casinos built in Massachusetts."

While a proposed new restaurant serving alcohol would get little or no scrutiny and win a liquor license, casinos get, Loveman argued, a disproportionate level of "social cost accounting" scrutiny over their link to personal bankruptcies, crime, addiction, prostitution and more.

"Clinicians, economists and sociologists would agree that the cost of addiction to alcohol is substantially higher" than gambling addiction. Over and over, Loveman said, he’s seen states that legalized gambling come to realize their concerns were exaggerated. "You're struck by just how completely normal and rather pedestrian these businesses can be once it settles in and people come to terms with it," Loveman said.

Volberg is working on extensive studies for the state aimed at quantifying the current level of problem gambling in Massachusetts, including Lottery ticket purchases and trips to out-of-state casinos, to try to track just how much having up to three casinos and a slots parlor affects the issue here. “We're looking at not just problem gambling, not just bankruptcies, not just divorces” but a wide range of social impacts, Volberg said.

Loveman said gambling addiction "is a real big issue" that the industry is committed to keeping under control and treating and eliminating. "I have 80,000 people who work with me, and I guarantee you, not one of them wants to go home at night thinking they served an addicted gambler. I don't, they don't, we don't want to market to an addicted gambler … The 2 percent of our customers in the casino industry broadly who suffer from addiction are a tragedy. Every single person who suffers this has grievous personal harm and harm for their families."  



But, Loveman argued, the overall economic upside to gambling is huge for Boston and, he said, could bring thousands of international high-rollers into Boston every year. Caesars’ New Orleans casino gets about one third of its business from local residents, one third from the broader Gulf region, and one third from people visiting New Orleans for business or conventions, and Loveman said he sees the mix of business for a Boston casino being the same.

"The only city in North America that receives significant high-end international play is Las Vegas," Loveman said. "I believe Boston will become the second such city. I think we will have a very high-caliber international gaming enthusiasts, many of whom are coming from China and are ethnic Chinese, who will come to Boston … I’m quite confident I can generate a tremendous volume of domestic and international visitation to a Caesars casino in Boston."

But, Volberg warned: "Some people are going to think a casino at Suffolk Downs is like the best thing possible. And some other people are going to think it's like the world's worst nightmare."

With videographer Dan Smith  



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