(I sort of accidentally jumped into an ongoing conversation elsewhere with what turned out to be this unintentional essay, and thought it was worth sharing sepa...rately here.)
Let's try taking casinos and slots and racing out of the picture for a minute.
Imagine a business which makes most of its money by inviting people to toss their cash into any one of 3,000 super-exciting holes in the ground. By law, this business keeps 75% of proceeds and gives the rest to the Commonwealth. It hires staff to watch the holes, scoop the money out of them, and serve free drinks to customers to keep their judgment right at the place where people might think it was somehow a good idea to throw money into holes with no realistic expectation of getting much of it back. Each of the 3,000 holes collects about $100,000/year--and, again, about $75K of this amount is kept by the business and returned to its investors... who, let's say (hypothetically!), live in Connecticut and New York. 95% of this money is coming from New England residents, and most of that is from locals within 35 miles of the business who can't get enough of watching their cash float slowly down the depths of the world's most exciting holes. When they start to find that all of their money is quickly disappearing down their hole of choice, staff appear to generously loan them more.
So where's the problem? This is America, and people have every right to toss their own money down a hole in the name of "entertainment," right? Well, sure. But the unfortunate thing about money is that 99% of us don't have much of it to throw into holes for no reason. Almost any spending that local regulars (the only thing keeping casinos around the country in what passes for profitable business in the industry at this point) could be doing short of actually buying hard drugs with that money would be better for everyone than throwing it down that hole. And the worst part is not only that the state is promoting this industry at the expense of its own people, but that it has enormous financial incentive to do so.
Here's my point: Spend a few bucks at Betty Ann's and you'll get the world's best deal on a sack of life-changing donuts. The same at Eddie C's will get you a healthy pour of your poison of choice.
Putting out a little more for a nice dinner at Rino's/Angela's/KO/etc will get you the satisfaction of some of the best food in Boston in good company. (And yes, solid arguments could be made that these aren't the healthiest ways to spend money either. But you'll have to make them over the unfortunate sounds of me shoving a meat pie in my face.) Even bringing your custom to our local corporate chains (CVS, McDonald's, etc.) supports local workers while actually providing a tangible thing that you can use.
Slots are kind of the opposite of all of that. By sucking so much out of the local economy, each slot machine in a local casino has been estimated to ultimately be responsible for killing approximately 1-2 local jobs. As one academic put it, slots in urban areas don't so much "create" jobs as "move them around." So at the very, very best, we *might* get a net neutral. At the worst, we've just invited a predatory industry into a densely-populated area already ravaged by income inequality and addiction.
I just don't see that as "saving jobs."
And let's be clear: this is all about the slots. The other retail and gambling options on site are only the peanut butter they have to wrap this bitter pill in for our consumption. Call it a "resort" and let the architects run wild with their sketches of Lambos and ladies of negotiable affection wandering the grounds if that helps, but Suffolk Downs would never have run itself into the ground in the singleminded pursuit of the opportunity to build a "resort" that wasn't built around slots.
Those silly funnel things in front of the proposed Mohegan Sun casino are a perfect illustration of where nearly all of the anticipated millions in slots money will be going: up into the sky, far from our community. Is this really the best kind of "economic development" and job creation we can possibly imagine for East Boston, or anywhere else in this state that has so much going for it already? I thought we'd already given our answer last November, but I'm just as happy to do it again this year.
Let's try taking casinos and slots and racing out of the picture for a minute.
Imagine a business which makes most of its money by inviting people to toss their cash into any one of 3,000 super-exciting holes in the ground. By law, this business keeps 75% of proceeds and gives the rest to the Commonwealth. It hires staff to watch the holes, scoop the money out of them, and serve free drinks to customers to keep their judgment right at the place where people might think it was somehow a good idea to throw money into holes with no realistic expectation of getting much of it back. Each of the 3,000 holes collects about $100,000/year--and, again, about $75K of this amount is kept by the business and returned to its investors... who, let's say (hypothetically!), live in Connecticut and New York. 95% of this money is coming from New England residents, and most of that is from locals within 35 miles of the business who can't get enough of watching their cash float slowly down the depths of the world's most exciting holes. When they start to find that all of their money is quickly disappearing down their hole of choice, staff appear to generously loan them more.
So where's the problem? This is America, and people have every right to toss their own money down a hole in the name of "entertainment," right? Well, sure. But the unfortunate thing about money is that 99% of us don't have much of it to throw into holes for no reason. Almost any spending that local regulars (the only thing keeping casinos around the country in what passes for profitable business in the industry at this point) could be doing short of actually buying hard drugs with that money would be better for everyone than throwing it down that hole. And the worst part is not only that the state is promoting this industry at the expense of its own people, but that it has enormous financial incentive to do so.
Here's my point: Spend a few bucks at Betty Ann's and you'll get the world's best deal on a sack of life-changing donuts. The same at Eddie C's will get you a healthy pour of your poison of choice.
Putting out a little more for a nice dinner at Rino's/Angela's/KO/etc will get you the satisfaction of some of the best food in Boston in good company. (And yes, solid arguments could be made that these aren't the healthiest ways to spend money either. But you'll have to make them over the unfortunate sounds of me shoving a meat pie in my face.) Even bringing your custom to our local corporate chains (CVS, McDonald's, etc.) supports local workers while actually providing a tangible thing that you can use.
Slots are kind of the opposite of all of that. By sucking so much out of the local economy, each slot machine in a local casino has been estimated to ultimately be responsible for killing approximately 1-2 local jobs. As one academic put it, slots in urban areas don't so much "create" jobs as "move them around." So at the very, very best, we *might* get a net neutral. At the worst, we've just invited a predatory industry into a densely-populated area already ravaged by income inequality and addiction.
I just don't see that as "saving jobs."
And let's be clear: this is all about the slots. The other retail and gambling options on site are only the peanut butter they have to wrap this bitter pill in for our consumption. Call it a "resort" and let the architects run wild with their sketches of Lambos and ladies of negotiable affection wandering the grounds if that helps, but Suffolk Downs would never have run itself into the ground in the singleminded pursuit of the opportunity to build a "resort" that wasn't built around slots.
Those silly funnel things in front of the proposed Mohegan Sun casino are a perfect illustration of where nearly all of the anticipated millions in slots money will be going: up into the sky, far from our community. Is this really the best kind of "economic development" and job creation we can possibly imagine for East Boston, or anywhere else in this state that has so much going for it already? I thought we'd already given our answer last November, but I'm just as happy to do it again this year.
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