The State of Massachusetts wants to raise cash by authorizing casinos-and the new governor (Deval Patrick) wants to put the casino liciensing fees into the state budget. He claims that MA can realize up to $600 million per year (“painlessly!”) from luring in the suckers-and stopping the $300 million/year in MA dollars flowing to the Connecticut casinos.
My question for you economists: is this healthy? I see casino gambling as a vampire-that sucks away cash from legitimate businesses-like stores and restaurants. Take a restaurant: you buy a meal-and the money you spend pays the cook’s salary, the waitress, the owners, and flows out to the suppliers. In the case of a casino, the money is spend and doesn’t come back.
I have no moral problem with gambling-you should be free to spend your money as you see fit. But promoting gambling as the solution to revenue problems, I just don’t buy. I wish the idiotic state government would ooks at cutting spending-instead of saddlingt the tax[payers with another hiddent\ tax 9gambling).
Finally-the people who want casinos-have they ever considered the bad effects of getting people addicted to gambling? 
What do you mean “doesn’t come back?” Casinos have waitresses, suppliers, dealers, cooks, maintenance people, etc. The money flows back into the community very freely. Plus, if the deal gets structured right, the state gets a cut of the action in addition to licensing fees.
If you are concerned about people gambling, better cancel all the lotteries and set up roadblocks to keep people from heading to Foxwoods.
Seems to be a pretty effective economic strategy for Native Americans! I think it makes perfectly sound economic sense, the only thing I’d worry about is the quality of the surrounding area declining. Major casino/gambling areas are not known for their high standard of living.
Ever looked around a reservation? Hard to go down from rock bottom.
If the government didn’t run casinos, people are going to find places to gamble anyway. Better to have it regulated by the state and provide some benefit to the public.
I agree that adults should be able to gamble legally, but it frosts my shorts whenever we hear the politicians talk about legalizing it only for revenue purposes. What about when the competing states have legal gambling? Will we then have legal cocaine and child prostitution to pay for education?
What sort of debauchery will we stop at? The bad part about this whole thing is that states won’t stop their out of control spending, but insist on more revenue from questionable sources…
MY problem with state-run casinos:
- they will be run by politicians: this guarantees mismanagement )and probably losses)
- when the economic devastation that visits gambling addicts becomes known, we we(the taxpayers) will have to fund “rehabilition clinics” for gambling addicts
- casinos suck money out of the private sector-every dollar bet in a casino is a dollar that isn’t spent on shoes, clothes, home repair, restaurant meals, etc.
- casinos are not generators of good jobs-black jack dealers and cocktail wautresses are not jobs I want MY kids to aspire to