Stop casinos and legal larceny

Regulatory Costs were predicted to be $5 MILLION....ACTUAL + $19 MILLION?


Did you know you got screwed?

[ORIGINAL ARTICLES AVAILABLE ON LINKS]

Top Robert DeLeo aide called casinos ‘fool’s gold’
Robert A. DeLeo tied to tribe flack....

DeLeo Finally Honest: We Need to Protect Gambling Investors
Massachusetts: Rushing Off A Cliff


Beacon Hill: Costs Greater Than Anticipated
The Crime Legislation should have been presented and voted on separately, but never expect House Speaker "Racino" DeLeo to succumb to reasonableness. [Remember that the Speaker recommended campaign contributors, incompetents and 'no-shows' for Probation Dept. jobs before providing a budget larger than requested.]

Attorney General Martha Coakley wisely was quoted as commenting:

...warned lawmakers that the cost of making it happen may be larger than anticipated. New regulations must be drawn up and new agencies created to enforce the regulation, she said.
 
NEW GAMBLING REGULATION TO COST $5 MILLION, ACCORDING TO SPEAKER’S OFFICE: The expanded gambling market called for under legislation proposed by Speaker Robert DeLeo would require $5 million in costs to cover new state regulatory and enforcement expenses, but the industry would pick up the tab, according to a DeLeo aide.DeLeo spokesman Seth Gitell said the estimate of state costs the gambling industry would reimburse is $5 million.





Ham: Stop casinos and legal larceny

Posted Oct. 25, 2014

It's about the money.

The casino and slots slated for the state are about money. A powerful legislator dictated that gambling would expand and created the Gaming Commission. We have witnessed non-stop and non-productive chaos since then. Except for monies conned from applicants, we are being scammed into supporting the Gaming Commission. It declared expenses last year of $19,312,712.78. Unbelievable. An audit of the agency is overdue and should be mandatory at this point. It would reveal how the $19 plus million in expenses were incurred, the source of the funds to pay the debts and any and all costs to taxpayers.

A threat of expanded gaming is that it will cannibalize the Lottery, which returned $952 million to the cities and towns last year. It is a stated guess that the new gambling will generate $400 million in revenue. Not even close. The Lottery benefits the people. The slots and casinos exist for the investors. Obviously we will pay for any shortage in Lottery aid.

The TV ad claiming 10,000 jobs is preposterous. How many workers are needed to watch gamblers feed slot machines or workers to shuffle cards? Most jobs are low skill for low pay and the fewer the better for profits. Evidently we are expected to spend millions to support gaming in exchange for some menial jobs.

Casinos elsewhere are going bankrupt and closing. Gamblers have moved on. It is ludicrous to go where others have failed and expect a different outcome.

A recent article in the Atlantic by David Frum sums it up: "Good way to wreck a local economy: build casinos. No one should look to the gambling industry to revive cities, because that's not what casinos do."

Vote yes on Question 3 to stop the legal larceny.

PRISCILLA J. HAM

Shrewsbury

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/article/20141025/OPINION/141027111/11609/OPINION