On the other hand, in the same thread, someone named “cbrillo” backs up proudlib’s attack on Rep. Bosley. “cbrillo” created their account on Feb 6th, and has commented exactly twice – once on proudlib’s “infantile” anti-Bosley post, and once with a fairly nonsensical pro-casino response elsewhere.
Yeah, that sounds like a grassroots swelling of support for casinos, alright.
In the latest post from Feb 9th, proudlib makes a lot of assertions about how many jobs, etc, the casino proposal would create, but no citation of where those numbers come from and who asserts them. In fact, they are asserted by the casino lobby and trickle down from there, and therefore are highly questionable, as many commenters in the post point out.
Why do I care about this? Because that last post got frontpaged on BMG. Now, I’m all for a fair and balanced discussion on this issue, but at the same time, a poorly-cited dubious post by someone who only recently created a user account and whose language appears, at best, shrill and unhinged at times…well, don’t we bloggers complain all the time about the mainstream media and its lazy habit of citing the he-said, she-said debate without parsing out the context or the facts of the matter? I’m not calling out the BMG editors (well, maybe just a smidge) as they are constantly front-paging all sorts of things and the blog moves fast, but I wanted to notate it to caution all readers of blogs that not all commentators, or even those of us who write on front pages, have earned the sort of credibility to be taken seriously. Please always use your best judgment when reading on the internets.
And I include readers of [my] blog in that. I am not immune to scrutiny, and won’t object to it either, so long as it’s fair scrutiny.
In the run-up to the town meeting in Middleboro this July, BMG had three new accounts created on the same day who each started saying wonderful things about casinos. Then they went silent. Would be interesting to compare IP addresses…
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p>I don’t think this person is a professional lobbyist at all, but I would wager s/he is doing “netroots” work on behalf of an interested party, possibly a union.
Labor has given their members marching orders. I suspect that this is only the beginning.
and yet, when proudlib’s post was promoted, I wondered if the good editors of BMG had set it up to be a pinata? After reading it, I decided that everyone else had done such a fine job of refuting the casino shill, that I didn’t feel the need to write anything at all.
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p>That said, Lynne, you made a very good point about using judgement when reading online. There are tons of reports and white papers out there, much of which has been written or underwritten by the casino industry. Today, I read a casino study that wasn’t underwritten by the casino industry…and it wasn’t terribly supportive. One of the issues that I found really compelling was the “substitution effect” on the host communities. (page 5)
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p>What is notable is the fact that 50% of the jobs “created” by casinos aren’t really created; they substitute for existing jobs within the community. The second substitution effect was the revenues, of which 72.6% were simply diverted from other spending, including entertainment, retail etc.
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p>http://webfiles.wichita.edu/ce…
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p>So…I think we have every right to proceed with caution, and to vet all the financials accordingly. It is neither selfish nor moralistic to care about your community.
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Anybody who wants to refute the arguments on the merits should, rather than dismiss people’s motives. That being said, the rules of this blog include disclosing conflicts so hopefully that is being done.
in the appropriate diaries.
I’ll just say that when I did it (a) I considered the possibility that it was written by a paid shill for the casino industry — that was a screamingly obvious possibility, and (b) I decided I didn’t know, and (c) I didn’t particularly care, because I thought the points raised were interesting, and the issue certainly one that warrants discussion.
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p>As has been discussed here ad nauseaum the rules on BMG are different from on other blogs. Specifically, they are written here. Our basic goal is to encourage discussion from as broad a spectrum of views as possible. Casino shills paid for by the industry, die-heard anti-gamblers, whatever. That said, we do want people to disclose conflicts of interest, and we don’t want people to make personal attacks. We want discussion to be civil and substantive, not unpleasant, petty, personal and inane.
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p>With respect to the first point, if proudlib is being paid by someone to blog, we’d expect them to disclose that. If we find out they are breaking our rules, we may share that information. We have done that on previous occasions. The result has been far less advantageous to the would-be spinners than any possibility PR plus. Remember, anonymity is an illusion on the internet. This media is in fact much less anonymous than any other that I am aware of.
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p>With respect to the second point, please take care when you make personal suggestions like this about other posters. Maybe what you suggest is accurate, but maybe it is not. Either way, tracking down someone’s posts and calling them out in such an aggressive and public way might, at a minimum, make someone feel uncomfortable and less likely to share their views, which we do not want. I assume that proudlib is just a person who likes casinos, and you should too.
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p>If you really just want to alert people to the possibility that material they read on BMG may not be accurate — and hello? who doesn’t know that? — you can always phrase it in a general way rather than making it so personal.
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p>If you disagree with that someone is writing, please respond to the substance of their comments.
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p>Incidentally, just so you know my opinion, I think a casino in Massachusetts is a fine idea: why should our gamblers have to go all the way to CT to play? I think we should start with one, however, not three.
After we build the Wall, that won’t be a problem anymore.
the post contained no links to back up its assertions, but was chock-a-block with rant-grade misspellings and, well, wild assertions. i’m not too picky about people’s writing ability, but if they don’t make even the slightest effort at documenting obviously wild claims, i really have to wonder how anyone could find them interesting. unless, of course, you’re real interest is in how (apparent) spam is handled in a forum like bmg.
not “you’re real interest”.
I read the post, and didn’t find it particularly substantive, or well-reasoned, or interesting. If a post that had those qualities were written by someone whom I suspected was a casino sock-puppet, I might front-page it anyway. But that wasn’t it.
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p>The editors don’t confer, or tell each other what to promote or not. And sometimes we don’t agree. But that’s OK.
There is an interesting post on Volokh Conspiracy about a “troubling” case that suggests that lawyer-written blogs are a form of commercial speech and thus have less First Amendment protections. If it presumably would apply to blog posts and comments as well, does that sort of negate the whole ethics about “full disclosure”? For instance, are AmberPaws posts, which include her easily googlable name, advertisements for her family law practice? She uses her name in the interests of “full disclosure” and also at the request of the Editors here (to improve the level of discourse and ground us to the reality based community), but Volokh worries that according to that ruling, doing so might make her comments advertisements (not that anyone’s posts here have any more First Amendment privileges than the Editors want to allow them).
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p>But I bring it up in light of this poster’s possible commercial interest or backing. In some way it seems like a similar blasted out advertisement, but for his Casino-building business rather than a blog. But the court in that case based its decision on the contact information, on using real names. By using a pseudonym, proudlib benefits from the advertising, but avoids the category of commercial speech, apparently.
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p>Volokh:
I wouldn’t allow any account’s postings to be front-paged for at least a month.
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p>That way, it will be very hard for the person to be a plant, we’ll already know a lot more about any particular poster and people will have by then learned the lay of the land, so to speak.
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p>There’s been too many plants to just give someone like this the benefit of the doubt – so, with all due respects to Bob, I don’t think it appropriate to just give someone like that the benefit of the doubt. Ultimately, blog owners have to be responsible for the blog content of their website – so it’s only the mature and responsible thing to do to make sure someone’s been around here for a certain length of time before their posts are allowed to be front paged.
It’s irrelevant whether there’s a casino plant or not, if you can’t refute his arguments.
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p>Look at some of the rebuttals. First, from Mr. Bosley, the go to guy for the anti-casino mavens:
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p>Now to shred his argument.
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p>Slot machines pay off at an average of 93%. What does that mean?
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p>That doesn’t mean that most people walk in with $100 and walk out with $93, as the remainder of Mr. Bosley’s math suggests.
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p>What that means is that, on average over extended time, every 100 turns, the machine pays something to the player 93 times. A meaningless statistic really except to the gaming commission, and marketing companies.
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p>The actual “profit margin” of a slot operation is somewhere between 20% and 50%, higher than the Bosleyized 7% because (Mr. Obvious here): sometimes players put their winnings back into the machine. Who knew?
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p>So to re-do Mr. Bosley numbers, for every dollar lost from the lottery, the state loses 24 cents, but gains somewhere between 10 cents and 25 cents from casino tax.
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p>I’m frankly appalled by the use of such misleading mathematics and statistics by Mr. Bosley.
When my Mom plays the slots in Atlantic City, she often tells me that “Well, I was GOING to play this particular slot, and then some guy slipped in AHEAD of me, and later HE won! I could have won!”
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p>So my suggestion is simply that someone from MA Gov’t BECOME THAT GUY, the guy who always picks the right slot!
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p>Say Tim Murray. So he walks around and wins a lot, then he gives over the winnings to MA. Couldn’t that improve MA’s slot yield significantly?
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p>Interesting. In Atlantic City, I follow old ladies around, then just as they start to sit down, I jump in front of them. Works every time. Cha-ching.
To another state. Sigh.
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p>The study doesn’t say what the good Legislator says it says. Here’s the link.
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p>What the study says is: The fact that Rhode Island residents were nearly twice as likely to gamble at Foxwoods as Mohegan Sun indicates that geographic proximity plays a strong role in casino choice.
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p>Does that imply that the Mass gamblers wouldn’t come home? Not that I can tell. What it does say, is that placement is important to bring the Foxwoods/Mass gamblers home.
Seriously Representative Bosley, step away from the numbers. Look, I’m a mediocre casino supporter at best, and don’t seek one in my backyard, but this offensive against casinos is pitiful.
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p>First, it’s interesting how he uses the pronoun “we”. “We” as in, we in the government only get $100 million–only–while “they” (not in the government) get a billion. Colour me biased but “they” is at least as important that “we”.
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p>Second, only $100 million. Only?
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p>Third, “we must fund a gaming commission at $75 to $80 million?” Really. Strange that Connecticut only spends $8.8 million. Damn Connecticut cheapskates with their cheap government.
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Tell that to a dead horse and he’ll get up and kick you. I’m just not getting the “mediocre casino supporter” vibe from you. I’m getting the “damn the torpedoes, who gives a sh** about prostitution, drugs, organized crime, saturation, substitution effect, infrastructure costs, increased municipal costs – fire,police and EMS – full speed ahead.
Hearing no direct rebuttal to a single point I raised with respect to Mr. Bosley’s stance, I assume you must agree with me.
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p>Of course there are additional infrastructure costs. And, the casino should be compelled to bear these costs. You have a point? Please make it.
I sense some disappointment in Mr. Bosley, but you seem to only care about his information. The casino vs. non-casino debate doesn’t necessarily focus on him. There was a very good meeting on the topic in Longmeadow a couple of weeks ago. A panel of five discussed the issue. Two on the panel were pro, two were against, and the third was the poor guy in the middle, the mayor of Palmer, who is trying to sort through data to give his town sufficient information for making a decision. There were numbers about jobs and salaries being thrown around (and summarily discounted by the the anti presenters), but nothing that was presented hinged upon Bosley’s analysis. The most important (and obvious) outcome of the meeting was that a majority in the room (representing all areas surrounding Palmer) felt there are too many unanswered questions and too little involvement of those who will be most impacted by a casino. People were skeptical, and they should be. This has become a political battle instead of a possibility to be explored and discussed by the communities who will have to live with the consequences if the numbers aren’t correct. It was good to see the skepticism and to hear the questions raised.
I’m quite close to the Palmer site, and for several reasons, have no real issue with the particular casino location: close to the Pike and very accessible with likely no major effect on local traffic and located on a parcel of land that’s currently nonproductive. Route 32 and 20 might experience some traffic so Monson, Brimfield, Wilbraham might have some issues, but those routes would be minor throughfares to the casino.
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p>I do agree that some feasibility studies ought be performed, much the same as with a new mall, walmart, stadium, etc….
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p>Being close the NIMBY arguement is real. I don’t object. Further, Palmer has generally favored a casino in referendum I recall. Palmers neighbors are stirred up a bit, so we’ll see. Truly it’s political.
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p>But you’re right. My objection is to Mr. Bosley’s information. I’ve heard him on the radio and television, calmly and confidently giving numerical and purpostedly rational objective reasons against casinos. Finally (just yesterday), I read his objections, and realized that his reasoning is just crap. He’d get an “F” for such misleading and shoddy information.
that you agree on the feasibility piece. Richard Fitzgerald, Palmer’s Town Manager, seems to believe that is necessary as well. The surrrounding towns need to know what to expect if casinos are approved, and they deserve to be part of discussions, studies and apportionment of revenues to cover potential infrastructure, education and emergency expenses.
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p>The Daily Hampshire Gazette (subscription only) has an article this morning indicating that Senator Stan Rosenberg will be stepping in as a neutral party to investigate the data. I think that’s a good sign. We need someone to do what Richard Fitzgerald is trying to do in assessing the impact, but on a larger scale. My opposition at this point is based not on the social ills, etc., but on the possibility that revenues will not be generated to cover the unforseen and undocumented costs to all of the surrounding towns. We are all in such precarious positions with overrides and losing town services already that one more straw could break the camel’s back (and Springfield cannot take another hit). If there’s a plan to go forward, I want assurances that all of the concerns are addressed and part of the negotiations. I don’t think that is unreasonable. If towns are excluded from the process, then I will eargerly participate in any efforts to keep casinos out. I trust Stan Rosenberg to do a thorough job.
I can’t believe we actually agree on something.
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p>It’s the towns’ cost. Most of any social ills and infrasture needs and additional services will be borne by the Town and maybe its abutters. The town should have a huge seat at the table, and a list of demands.
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p>But, to cloudy the issue, you have Bosley stepping in passing off information principally focusing on the cost to the state, loss to the lottery, cost of a gaming commission using bogus numbers to support his forgone conclusion.
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p>A few years ago a Walmart located nearby. We sought and got property tax relief plus a sewer plant in exchange for not fighting the Walmart zoning. No diff for a casino. It’s a fair trade so long as the town NOT THE STATE make the deal.
The Gaming Authority, the Secretary of A & F as well as HHS have enormous control over the mitigation and no formula is offered. No regional representation is included in the proposed bill and there are no fiscal checks and balances with the legislature, “without further appropriation”. I would hope that a cash business of this genre would have extensive oversight including power balances between the Admin./Leg/Local representatives.
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p>The host communities in the current bill will have a seat at the table with the developers/casino investors both to vote and develop a contract/terms. It’s the region/abutters that have no representation or vote.
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p>There is no framework for the Gaming Authority budget or projected costs for the OAG, DA’s, law enforcement, school enrollment increases, housing needs, pollution mitigation, etc. in the bill. Those costs are not factored in anywhere. After a cut for the lottery revenues and a Gaming Control Authority, there isn’t much left to mitigate the above factors and the needs of the most impacted towns/cities. Yes, independent impact studies are needed and one of my primary beefs is that they were not conducted prior to the filing of a major bill.
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p>I think Bosley and every elected representative has a legitimate issue with the effects on the Lottery = Local Aid and other issues that impact the state economy.
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p>I hope there will be lively discussion on these fiscal issues at some point in the MSM and the legislature. The recycled stump speech projections have not only been shown to be wrong but annoyingly they continue to be promulgated by MSM.
There is a regional casino task force that includes Warren and Palmer Selectmen/Town Councillors and the 11 towns in the region that are studying the casino bill.
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p>There is a southeast regional task force doing the same for the Middleboro region/abutters.
up the Task Force? I don’t think it was mentioned at the meeting I attended.
I posted 20 times… it must be true!!
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p>If you look at Mr. Bosley’s bulletpoints in opposition to casinos, it’s extremely poorly done, and in many respects, displays either dishonest or ignorance.
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p>In my personal analysis there are precisely two reasons to oppose casinos. One is NIMBY, and the other is Nanny-state. Either you don’t want one in your backyard and/or you think the social costs exceed the dollar rewards. Both excellent reasons by my estimation.
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p>However, I find Mr. Bosley’s bulletpoints simply horrible, dishonest and intellectually weak. Two clear examples were his analysis of the lost revenues because the profit from slots was only equal to 7% (the payoff rate on slots) How stupid! A cursory review of the gaming industry supports a profit margin well in excess of 30%, and 70% of that is from slots!
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p>The second example, is Mr. Bosley’s claim that the state would require an $80 million gambling commission when our CT neighbor manages to get by with a ‘department of special revenue’ with a budget of $8.9 million. That’s simple dishonesty.
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p>So feel free to reply with the snappy comeback, but lacking a substantive point simply tells me you lack a substantive point.
Even though they’re not the reasons why I oppose casinos, per say, the problems you bring up are actually justifiable reasons to be opposed to casinos. First, let’s examine NIMBYism. I’m generally opposed to such a thing, but I think it’s important to examine if there are times when NIMBY arguments are actually warranted. Let’s go to something I’ve screamed NIMBY over, in the past: Cape Wind. We desperately need renewable energy. Cape Wind is one of the few projects of its kind which could help this state meet its renewable energy goals. Because of its importance, a project of that kind should be built anywhere it’s proven to be safe, because our entire environment is at stake. NIMBY arguments don’t work when there’s other societal needs as well, such as a new school, fire station or even hospital if any of those are needed. However, does a society actually need a casino?
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p>The reason why NIMBY is a valid argument to build projects in many cases is because the things that people are against are needed somewhere, they just don’t want them in their backyard. They don’t want the prison, or the power plant or the sewage plant. However, all those things need to be built somewhere. That’s just not the case with casinos: Massachusetts has been doing fine without them, and since we don’t need them, it’s not fair to build one in a particular community if other communities wouldn’t be willing to host it, either.
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p>Furthermore, the idea of a Nanny State isn’t exactly something appealing for anyone, but it’s hard to ignore the societal problems that rise directly and indirectly from casinos. First, directly: the rate of gambling addiction literally doubles when within 50 miles of a casino. Massachusetts already has a higher-than-average addiction, no doubt fueled by our best-in-the-nation state lottery system (per capita, anyway). If you want to throw in slot machines, which are designed to keep people playing (free liquor included), then you have to be prepared to know that over 1 in 20 people in this state will become problem gamblers. That’s enough people to effect pretty much everyone in the commonwealth: we’ll all have a family member or a friend who’s life was ruined because we were too afraid of the “Nanny State” lable.
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p>There are indirect results of that, too. First, embezzlement and crime goes way up. We’ve seen that much in Connecticut. Second, because of all the people spending their money in the casinos – and the malls attached to the casinos – that means the local economy is losing money en masse. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston says up to 75% of a casino’s profits can be merely redistributed from other sectors of the economy. We’ve seen it in Detroit and Atlantic City: local businesses simply die off, especially in the restaurant/entertainment industry. There’s a lot of things you’re simply casting off aside – and I only began to touch on the surfice of problems that extend beyond your “Nanny State” and “NIMBY” arguments, which I tore apart in and of themselves. There are legitimate reasons to be against casinos. Rep Bosley hits on many of them. It’s only too bad we didn’t have more people who were knowledgeable on the subject, pushing for an honest hearing on the matter.
In the first two paragraphs you simply reiterated what I said: there are two legitimate reasons against casinos, NIMBY and Nannystate. I completely understand those arguments even if I don’t necessarily endorse them.
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p>And then, like Mr. Bosley, you go off the rails. So fast and loose with the facts that it calls into question the voracity of your entire argument.
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p>Let’s look. Connecticut magazine ranked Ledyard 9th of the 23th connecticut towns with population 10,000 – 15,000. Not great, but not bad, top 40%, better than average in their opinion.
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p>Overall state crime rates. Down. Note the total index is steadily down since 1990. In short, your statement is dead wrong. Look at crimes against people, property. Look at larceny and theft. All, consistently down.
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p>Good point, except the Boston Fed never said that. What it did say was that ‘substitution’ was mixed and that one study showed substitution up to 75% while others showed substitution as low as 4% (Clever that you picked 75% for impact.)
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p>That study is far more balanced in its analysis, picking no favorite it appears:
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p>And then, the finale. You say:
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p>I carefully read Mr. Bosley missive and above, one by one showed where he was either ignorant or dishonest with his numbers analysis. Yet, you praise his reasoning, while ignoring his blantant errors.
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I argued for an honest hearing. I’ll amend that to add a nonpartisan commission that could truly study the issue for the type of length to come up with their own numbers and make a good appraisal of the situation. Such a radical change as a casino in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts warrants as much, no?
Nonpartisan committee with a one year or less timeframe. Agreed.
To acknowledge some of the other substantive points. The Federal Reserve study, for example, is interesting. Just saying.
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p>But, good to see so much agreement breaking out all over 😉
My, my, my. I post a few comments referencing Rep. Dan Bosley’s economic and casino foibles, and that its time for all the moral handwringing to cease over the guv’s substantive casino legis, so that our state can compete within New England’s resort casino realm —and, behold, my right to free speech is immediately attacked — by fellow liberals yet!
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p>I’m a plant? I’m a casino lobbyist? I’m neither. I’m a Boston-born, Massachusetts-college educated male who considers himself “to the left of Fidel,” but believes my fellow libs have it all wrong on casino gambling.
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p>Nevertheless, I stand by what I wrote: Bosley’s penchant for economic expertise is outdone by my 7-year old son. Of course, if you believe that Bosley’s energy dereg legis created healthy competition and resulted in lower utility rates, you’re certainly entitled to that opinion. But I’d wait until you check out of Mattapan State before you say so publicly. That’s a joke, for those of you who go to school in my state but weren’t raised in greater Boston and don’t now the history of our city.
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p>And, of course, what can you say to Bosley’s incomprehensible logic in continuing to broom $1.1 billion in revenues and jobs and tourism out of the MA economy into the CT and RI economies? Only that it’s apropos for a legislator who foolishly believes fewer energy companies means INCREASED competition and lower utility rates.
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p>You can blindly defend Bosley, or you can come to grips with the fact that as he has presided over the gov’t regs committee and now the econ dev committee, Massachusetts’ economy has been in freefall. And since we have a top-heavy Democratic Legislature, if Bosley had any substantive economic underpinnings, wouldn’t he have during the past 15 years or so, put forth legis that would have created more jobs and generated more econ devel?
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p>But he didn’t.
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p>All he’s known for is a tax giveaway package for Fidelity and Raytheon, and an energy dereg gift that resulted in less competition and higher utility rates.
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p>If Bosley’s your idea of a pragmatic liberal legislator who has helped to create a more competitive Massachusetts economy, then you’re living in the Bizzaro World!
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p>Talk to you soon.
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p>proudlib
Why don’t you look up Bosley’s campaign contributions to see who the real shill is? Only 11% of the total campaign contributions received during 2006 and 2007 came from his home district. Yup, that’s right, 89%, or $55,400 of Bosely’s contributions came from interests outside his home district. Funny, considering posts made by supposed people from his district claim he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.