I hope by now, everyone has read the article in the Boston Globe:
For casino opponents, an unlikely ace in the hole
I’m proud to be associated in a small way with a coalition dedicated to educating the public about the facts of the costs and impacts of slots which have been called the “Crack Cocaine of Gambling.”
We simply can’t afford the costs.
Last week, a poll was released that seems to indicate Massachusetts residents support gambling. In response, I posted this:
Clyde Delivers ….
The same day, ignored by the media, this poll was released: 70% Oppose CT Gambling Expansion
Should we wonder if sanity begins over the state line? Others have questioned the credibility of the pollster.
Recently, I was stuck by Roll of the dice:
When the Seneca Niagara Casino opened on New Year’s Eve 2002, it was surrounded by neighborhoods of rotting and dilapidated housing and vacant storefronts lined nearby Niagara Street.
Eight years later, the view hasn’t really changed.
“(Niagara Falls) could have looked at Atlantic City, they could have looked at Detroit,” Simon said. “(Casinos) basically destroyed local business in Atlantic City.”
Bryant Simon wrote a book titled “Boardwalk of Dreams” that destroys any myth about the prosperity or economic spin off of casinos.
Consideration of existing slot parlors, by whatever name you choose, whether racinos, casinos or the phony name of “Destination Resorts” bring increased crime, bankruptcies, suicides, family dysfunction, increased child abandonment, neglect and abuse, increased spousal abuse, increased costs for oversight, investigation, prosecution, incarceration and court costs.
The NGISC indicated that for every $1 in gambling tax revenue, the cost to taxpayers was $3. That figure is surely larger today.
The report from Australia posted on the USS Mass site also proves similar statistics.
California has also found the costs of slots far exceeds the revenue.
Canada has found comparable results.
Federal Reserves studies have indicated that bankruptcies increase around casinos. That’s not a religious or moral argument, but simply fact.
Harrah’s found that 90% of their profits originated from 10% of their patrons. Those are gambling addicts that cost taxpayers money.
A statistic the industry has never denied.
The jobs that will be created are low wage, dead end jobs.
We need sustainable jobs with a future, a possibility for advancement, something we can be proud to work.
If casinos pave the streets with gold, what happened to Atlantic City where the poor school performance remains and poverty is higher than before the casinos?
If casinos pave the streets with gold, what happened to Nevada where the school dropout rate is among the highest in the nation, crime and poverty are high, suicides are high, school performance and reading skills poor, and college graduation rates are low?
Casinos, racinos, slot parlors around the country are filing for bankruptcy, being foreclosed, reorganizing their debt or simply not paying. Don’t the taxpayers pick up those debt write offs?
Foxwoods imploded with their debt and the true loss will never be known because they’re “Sovereign.” Their parking lots are empty.
Mohegan Sun, suitor of Palmer, canceled a major expansion.
Twin River’s in bankruptcy court and has been rewarded with 24/7 365 gambling that the host community overwhelmingly opposed in a referendum.
Steve Norton, of Centaur and Northeast Realty, also filed bankruptcy in 2 states.
There are others as well.
Ms. Norbut only represents a growing coalition of voters, Massachusetts residents, who refuse to subsidize an industry that depends on addiction for its survival.
I have found that the more I learned about predatory gambling, the more I opposed it because of its impacts on the host communities and surrounding communities.
“Something for Nothing” schemes didn’t work before. They won’t work now.
It’s time to put this puppy to bed.
We were asked to wipe out all our legal protections from the predatory gambling industry in exchange for promises of a financial windfall based on a cost benefit analysis of the same predatory industry.
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p>Let me get this correct. This same predatory industry is now done their own poll that surprising shows we really do like being preyed upon by them?
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p>Thanks Kathleen for standing up and speaking truth to power!
Sue, you got it right! Kathleen’s got it right!
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p>After watching this Gambling Industry around the country and around the world, I made a comment recently about the fact that “Before the ink is dried, they’re renegotiating the terms.”
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p>Then I posted The Ladder ApproachTaken from “The Luck Business,” by Professor Robert Goodman, page 70.
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p>Has anyone noticed that we have gone from SLOTS TO SAVE THE TRACKS to Full blown CASINOS AT THE TRACKS.
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p>What House Speaker “Slots” DeLeo is proposing is not what it seems.
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p>He is proposing full blown casinos at existing tracks on the pretense of ‘saving jobs’ blah, blah, blah, and Oh, BTW, how about 2 Falsely labeled “Destination Resorts.”
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p>But, wait!
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p>Massachusetts currently has 2 recognized Native American Tribes.
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p>Does that mean 2 more full blown casinos at undetermined locations?
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p>Oh, wait! Massachusetts currently has 6 more Tribes that have applications for recognition pending with the BIA.
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p>Does that really mean 8 more casinos?
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p>Since I get easily confused, here’s my math:
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p>DeLeo’s plan:
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p>2 Phony Destination Resort slot parlors
4 Full blown slot parlors at tracks
1 Logan Airport per Senator Pacheco’s previous proposal
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p>8 Slot Parlors for approved/pending Tribes
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p>What just a minute!
That’s 15.
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p>NIMBY anyone?
…until I learned the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe wanted to build the world’s largest casino in the next town over.
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p>First there was the cringe factor, followed quickly by concerns for my property values and additional traffic. So I started looking into casino impacts, and the more I found, the more concerned I became – for all the reasons you’ve stated here, and MORE.
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p>When you read an article about casinos or slots in Massachusetts on-line newspapers, the comments are mostly rah-rah! But have you ever read the comments following casino articles in gambling states or communities? Totally different story. Apparently the streets are not paved in gambling gold.
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p>Most people in the Barrow Poll are no doubt in the same position I was 3 years ago – they just don’t know the facts. If they did, if they even knew a few of them, they’d oppose expanded gambling in Massachusetts.
mainstream media has to endorse anything that destroys America. Look at it logically, objectively and over time you may see it as true.
The biggest gift the industry has ever given us were these ill-planned proposals for casino sites across the state, because that’s when they force citizens in nearby communities to do the research and actually study the issue. That’s when the fiercest opposition rises up — and once these people know the truth, they don’t stop when the casino is no longer a threat to their area. They keep going because they know it’s not just wrong for them, but wrong for their entire state, and that these resort casino projects are simply too large to just negatively effect the nearby area — that, in fact, just three of them would double the rate of problem gamblers (and all the problems that come with that) across the entire state.
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p>What’s made Kathleen Conley Norbut so great is that she is one of us. She’s a regular person who was unwantingly exposed to this issue and has taken it upon herself to turn her fight against them into a second full-time job, so she can fight it across the state. She personifies the struggle, she inspires others to fight against it and she’s absolutely fearless in the face of lobbyists with millions to spend and mountains of influence to expend in their greedy, self-interested fight filled with lies and deception.
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p>If ever there was a fight where good was pitted against evil, truth against lies, struggling, regular folks against powerful, wealthy interests, this is it. The slot industry does not care about Massachusetts or those in it, beyond how much they think they can turn a profit from it, whereas the Commonwealth and her people is all Kathleen Conley Norbut, and those like her, care about. We care about our families, our neighbors, our homes, our towns, our schools and our parks — and that favorite little restaurant down the block we go to just about every Friday night. This is what we fight for, this is why we stand up against those who would seek to destroy it. The casinos don’t care about them, they don’t care about communities — in fact, they seek to replace them with the window-less rooms where our purses are exposed to their vacuums and our hard-fought-for resources are sucked right out of our regions, never to be seen again.