Casinos in Florida will create myriad problems

Casinos in Florida will create myriad problems

I’m a native Floridian, returning a year and a half ago after 15 years in Reno. While casino revenues do contribute to the tax base, the social problems that the gambling industry brings with it are hard to comprehend unless you’ve lived in that kind of community.

Casinos do create jobs --the question is, what kind of jobs? The 24/7 casino business requires large numbers of low-wage, uneducated workers.

Often they are immigrants who have tremendous social needs and have children who require enormous support in our schools, especially since they usually do not speak English.

Parents work odd hours, and due to low wages they often need to work more than one job just to make ends meet, leading to unsupervised kids and the related social problems that go with that.

These are just a few of the employee-related problems. I could go on and on and that is not even mentioning the problems with patrons in the casino itself, which requires large amounts of alcohol to fuel gambling activities. DUIs are only one of the problems associated with excessive alcohol consumption.

Resort business? In Reno and Las Vegas, there are very few hotels that are not attached to casinos. Why is this? Because they cannot compete with them!

I’d love to give the legislators a tour of Reno to see for themselves. If they like gambling, they should just take a vacation and enjoy it in Las Vegas or Reno -- not here!

Jody Baden
Anna Maria

Read more here: http://www.bradenton.com/2012/01/20/3805590/casinos-in-florida-will-create.html#storylink=cpy