Why is it that whenever a study shows magic benefits and no costs for casinos, it is always funded by an entity that stands to gain from them?
Casinos are a terrific source of good-paying, benefit-rich, blue-collar jobs, the Labor Resource Center of the University of Massachusetts at Boston has found.
Sounds great until you get to this paragraph buried at the end:
The study was paid for, in part, by the Construction Institute, a nonprofit association dedicated to improving the construction industry, and the Future of Work in Massachusetts project, which is funded by the University of Massachusetts’ President’s Office.
A read of this study shows a lot of very obvious problems.
The premise of the study is that casino workers with less than a college education earn more and have better benefits than similarly educated workers in other industries. Here’s the obvious problem: No one is denying that casinos earn lots of money. Comparing workers in a highly profitable industry to the aggregate of all other workers is a stacked comparison. A more relevant comparison would be between casino/hotel workers and non-gaming resorts such as Disney. Comparing the pay and benefits of a hotel worker in the MGM Grand in Las Vegas to a Motel 6 in Corndog, Iowa is meaningless. I would maintain that if you compared uneducated casino workers to similarly educated workers in other highly successful companies you would get a very different result.
The study also includes a section that basically says that unionized casino workers in Las Vegas fare better than their non-unionized counterparts in Reno. Interesting but meaningless since the differing economies skew the results. This section stuck out like a sore pro-union thumb.
There is a section that concludes that Patrick’s commercial casino plan is wonderful when compared to Indian casinos in CT and NY. Well duh.
This study came off as a real rah-rah for Patrick’s casino legislation with pro-union overtones. The basic mechanism of comparing workers in a highly profitable industry to all other workers was bound to produce the overly rosy results. Coupled with the funding from construction industry interests, let’s just say I’m not convinced especially when, as usual, the socio-economic costs are completely ignored.
Gambling has devestating socio-economic impacts that far outweigh any gains.
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p>This “study” is greatly flawed. The University of Massachusetts should not be used to generate garbage science like this. Yes, we don’t want casino money going to CT or NY, but get real!
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p>The Boston Globe wants the casino’s advertising $$$$ really bad. So do some others.
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p>So do many other activities which our free populace enjoys. Smoking, drinking, eating processed fatty foods, abortion, an on and on. Do you know how many people die each year by drowning in their own swimming pools? Better we protect them against their foolishness.
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p>Maybe some really educated, know-it-all, could sit down and decide for us what activities we should be allowed to enjoy with our hard earned wages and which might be bad for us or society.
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p>Don’t like it, don’t do it, but leave my rights alone.
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p>I do not gamble.
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p>Let me frame that comment another way.
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p>We should not give any thought to the legalization or regulation of things that are currently illegal because we have some legal activities that have social, medical, or health issues.
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p>Any proposed change in law or policy must be thoroughly vetted to insure that the costs outweigh the benefits. So far, independent study indicate that casinos utterly fail such vetting.
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p>Certainly less then the people who die on our roads and highways each year. And probably not as many who shoot themselves, willingly or accidentally, with fire-arms. I have as many, if not more, counter-factuals as you can muster. In general, however, there are some regulations regarding swimming pools (particularly dealing with fencing and other means of preventing un-authorized access) just as there are regulations dealing with motor vehicle licensure and fire-arms ownership.
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p>What’s your point?
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p>If gambling isn’t as addictive as drugs and/or alcohol then you’re right: we ought not to make that big a deal about it… and people ought to be ‘free’ to engage in the activity all they want.
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p>But if it is addictive, can you then say that they are ‘free’? Are they making a choice based upon free will if it becomes a compulsion that they are unable to control? Surely, you don’t wish to see heroine junkies roaming the streets, ‘free’ to do whatever it takes to score the next fix? (Do you?) Can you differentiate between ‘foolishness’ and addiction?
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p>People, in general, aren’t addicted to swimming pools. They don’t perform criminal acts in order to get their swimming pool fix. They don’t jones for the chlorine. In general, people are able to make rationale and sober-minded judgements about whether or not to get a swimming pool.
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p>The same cannot be said for gambling. In general, and as a matter of stated casino goals, they tend to get ‘swept up’ in the excitement and before you know it, there goes the farm. Sad story. Told too too many times. It might be accurately said that the product of a casino is not money, but ‘foolishness’… They have lights, bells, whistles and the false perception of chance; these all exist to put people into a ‘foolish’ state of mind, at which point they all but pick their pockets…
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p>Aside from addiction, there is an entirely different manner in which people are not ‘free’ when it comes to gambling: innumeracy. If they were numerate, they would not gamble. It isn’t, in point of fact, much of a ‘gamble’ at all, as far as the casinos are concerned. As it is, many people lack the mathematical perspective to understand the odds and how it is that, ‘the house always wins.’
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p>Are you advocating ‘freedom’ based upon poorly understood principles of probability and chance? Do you think that that barely concealed adrenaline pumpers called ‘casinos’ wish that people would make rationale and intelligent decisions? Do you think this is mere ‘foolishness’ or something deeper in our society?
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You’re comparing things that are completely different – and not even doing a good job of it. For example, the dangers of smoking and drinking are well advertised every time. We even ban ads for smoking. Casino ads come with no disclaimers – I’ve never heard: “warning, you may become addicted to the slots in this casino, which will lead to you and your family’s financial ruin” included in a Mohegan Sun ad. Moreover, cigarettes may destroy your life over the course of a decade or more (usually more), but you can become addicted to slot machines relatively quick, without knowing the dangers of them and how they actually addict you.
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p>The fact of the matter is regardless of what Massachusetts does, your rights aren’t impacted. There’s nothing stopping you from having a Friday night game night with your friends. There’s nothing stopping you from hopping onto a cruise boat in Lynn and doing all the slots and gambling you’d like on Horizon’s Edge. There’s nothing stopping you from going to Connecticut, Rhode Island or Las Vegas (where it’s probably cheaper than ever – and it’s never been expensive). Seriously, nothing. stopping. you.
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p>We just don’t want resort casinos in Massachusetts. That’s a legal restriction we place in this state, a regulation like any other regulation on businesses in Massachusetts. We do it for moral as well as commercial reasons (casinos destroy local economies). We have tens of thousands of regulations on businesses in this state: no slots is just one of them. It’s little different than regulations we place to limit the amount of carbon emissions from cars and factories or how long we let food be stored before it has to be thrown away at a restaurant. You can go gamble to your heart’s content at your local convenience store, super market, gas station or freaking liquor store, not to mention restaurants where you can play KENO. So, honestly, your argument holds no merit.
in the state of Massachusetts?
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p>I must have missed that one in the Bill of Rights? Which amendment was that?
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p>Mark
bad choice of word, I’ll try and do better.
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p>You all know my point. There are a lot of “we” around here who don’t mind impacting the freedoms of the many, to protect the few from themselves. I guess I’m not so smart that I feel comfortable telling others how they should live their lives, I’m too busy just trying to succeed in living my own life.
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p>In addition, let’s either get the state out of the business of gaming, or open it up to everyone, otherwise it’s hypocrisy.
Whatever the state does private enterprise should be able to do (or else it’s hypocrisy)?
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p>Mark
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and serves as the vendor to a consumer in a voluntary commercial transaction. In my opinion it is hypocrisy to disallow the private sector to compete.
… put in the word ‘voluntary’ that you’re pre-supposing that non-voluntary transaction for government services might be ok. I’m thinking of public utilities in the US and universal state health insurance in other western democracies.
Then yes.
I was under the impression that Billy Bulger was gone. I guess not. Massachusetts: The Culture of Corruption!
One can dress up the gambling/casino pig and even put lip stick on it, but it is still a pig.
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p>Sal had lots of problems, but his position on gambling wasn’t one of them!
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p>Games of chance may be alright under some circumstances. But some can stop and play in moderation.
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p>I’m far from a Puritan, but gambling is no silver bullet. Three casinos in Mass. is far too many. If we need any at all.
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p>The house may always win, but the Commonwealth might not!
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There are several slot bills also being filed. Having attended a recent cheerleading session in Plainville,
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p>http://mysite.verizon.net/vzey…
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p>it is obvious where the owners want to take it. Slots are what makes casinos profitable. Just slots alone at a racino produces more bang from your bucks with less jobs. Very profitable for the owners, less overhead.
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p>The state shouldn’t be condoning and milking such places just to fill state coffers. So who are the evil capitalists now?
essentially did away with dog racing?
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p>Mark