Discussion
  • Read More
    ColoradicalHamilton Nolan
    11/04/13 3:12pm

    So you'd rather just drive gambling underground, where no cut of the proceeds can be used for things that are actually productive? Prohibiting vices doesn't get rid of them, it just drives them away from regulation and makes them more dangerous for everyone involved. Your argument is exactly the same as the one that keeps the drug war going.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      Hamilton NolanColoradical
      11/04/13 3:18pm

      I'm not arguing that gambling should be illegal. I'm arguing against building more casinos. I'm also arguing against politicians in general using gambling as an underhanded way to increase government revenues when better, less harmful ways exist.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      snobbyoneColoradical
      11/04/13 3:21pm

      Also, people will flock to a legitimate casino.

      People do not flock to an underground unsanctioned gambling den in quite the same numbers.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    Sean BrodyHamilton Nolan
    11/04/13 3:11pm

    I skimmed that article in the NY Daily News. Do they have any proposed sites?
    Neither the article or the blog post is specific about whether these would be in New York city or not.
    Although if the money is going to city schools, you'd have to think they were.
    Anyone know where they're thinking of placing these things?

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      Sean BrodySean Brody
      11/04/13 3:14pm

      Okay, did some digging, got my answer

      http://www.nydailynews.com/news/casinos-n…

      Anywhere but Manhattan. I guess everyone there has already hit the lottery.
      Manhattan Real Estate Is Perfectly Affordable (for Billionaires) Manhattan Real Estate Is Perfectly Affordable (for Billionaires) Manhattan Real Estate Is Perfectly Affordable…

      Earlier this year, we advised you that New York City real estate has now become too expensive for… Read more Read more

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      Cherith CutestorySean Brody
      11/04/13 3:14pm

      If it is like it was here they pass the bill and then people bid on sites. So nothing concrete. But one would be relatively close to NYC.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    AurochsHamilton Nolan
    11/04/13 3:16pm

    Have you ever seen Las Vegas beyond the strip, or Atlantic City? They're absolute shitholes. The casinos haven't helped them economically one bit, and are likely hurting them by siphoning money away to out-of-state companies. If you want to tax gambling, build a goddamn racetrack.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      McGarnagleAurochs
      11/04/13 3:25pm

      Las Vegas (and Henderson! REPRESENT!) is nowhere close to being as big a shithole as non-Boardwalk Atlantic City. Summerlin is actually really nice!

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      JAurochs
      11/04/13 3:26pm

      Do you honestly think without the casinos in Vegas the city would be better off economically? It creates HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of jobs for people there

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    AuntEggmaBlowtorchHamilton Nolan
    11/04/13 3:30pm

    A better reason to vote against it: We've promised Native American tribes that gaming is one thing we'll let them do exclusively to make up for all the stuff we did to them, and to help them find a way to become financially self-sufficient.

    Now we're backing out on that promise, too. Surprise, surprise.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      sigmaoctansAuntEggmaBlowtorch
      11/04/13 3:48pm

      Yes, exactly. Those of us on the West Coast are very familiar with Indian casinos, since there are a lot more reservations out here than in the East. Its worked out to be a nice system... Indian reservations are usually in out-of-the way places (another whole issue), allow states to satiate the gambling demand without actually changing their laws or having political debates, provide buckets of money to tribes that desperately need it, and for the more successful tribes (like the Coeur d'Alene's in Idaho) help fund infrastructure like tribal fire and police protection in vast areas of the countryside, taking the burden off states and counties for those services.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      megalocornAuntEggmaBlowtorch
      11/04/13 4:01pm

      And guess what— it STILL doesn't significantly improve their economic situation. Infrastructure sure, to the degree you are willing to invest. But overall quality of life is still oppressive. So are the vast majority of the small towns that these reservations are located near (save those near LA). There has been no explosion, no influx of economic uplifting.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    RussianistHamilton Nolan
    11/04/13 3:31pm

    Casinos fall into the same civic boondoggle category as sports stadiums.

    That said, from what I've seen it's one surefire way to get elderly taxpayers and anti-intellectual taxpayers to put money into K-12 schools with no complaints. How much of the casino's take actually ends up there, though, brings us back to my first point.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      arandomgoonRussianist
      11/04/13 3:59pm

      Oh no way. Nothing is as bad as publically funding a sports stadium. Yuck.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      Russianistarandomgoon
      11/04/13 4:06pm

      I agree the stadiums are generally worse within the category, but the basic pitch is the same: the municipality and/or state gives the team owner/casino operator tax breaks and exclusive licenses, in exchange promising the public civic revitalisation and good jobs and increased tax revenues in the long term. Those latter promises never come true, and all you get are a bunch of fatcats enjoying their sweetheart deals.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    thundercatsaregoHamilton Nolan
    11/04/13 3:29pm

    I know New York will be loathe to do so, but it really should learn from Ohio's mistake. Debate raged here for years about whether we should amend state laws to allow casino gambling. The crux of the argument was that our neighboring states had gambling and we wanted to keep that money at home. After a campaign fueled by gambling industry money, something like 4 casinos were approved. Taxpayers were repeatedly told that the money would benefit the state, and the projected earnings seemed almost too good to be true (spoiler: they were).

    Now we have four casinos. They've been operational for about 2 years. Each casino has failed to meet its expected earnings. And I'm not talking about being off by $100,000 or so. We're talking off by millions. It's clear the state bought the industry's BS hook, line, and sinker. In Cleveland, taxpayers were told that we would get a casino built in two phases. The first would be downtown, in an existing building. It was pitched as a temporary, stop-gap—A place to get the games up and running while plans were made for a new, state of the art, luxury casino on the riverfront. Guess what: We've got the small, dingy, downtown casino, and it's never hit its profit marks. Unsurprisingly, we don't even have plans for the nicer casino to be built. It will never happen. So we're stuck with a crappy casino with ridiculously high table stakes that no one goes to.

    Long story short: Casinos exist to make money for casino owners. They do not profit states (in fact, states should automatically halve whatever estimates the casinos try to tell them they will make. That's a more realistic number). All this says nothing of the human impact with regard to social services and an increased need for gambling addiction treatment/services (trust me, since the casinos came to town, my friend's waiting list to see clients at her addiction counseling practice has gone through the roof...gamblers have to wait months to get an appointment).

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      isner-mahutthundercatsarego
      11/04/13 3:34pm

      This. Un-grey thyself.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      thundercatsaregoisner-mahut
      11/04/13 3:39pm

      Thanks! I always wonder if my burner ass will get rescued from the grey.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    NoSleepTillCrooklynHamilton Nolan
    11/04/13 3:30pm

    "Most casinos are filled with the poor and middle class"
    Regardless of class, the biggest contributors to casino profits are the elderly. Besides a weekend night, the majority of casino patrons are elderly retirees. It's not so much poor youngsters spending rent money as it is Grandma dumping her grandchildren's inheritance.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      PetyrBaelishNoSleepTillCrooklyn
      11/04/13 3:37pm

      as grand ma has every right to do.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      burningtheburnsburnsyetagainPetyrBaelish
      11/04/13 3:40pm

      So do I have every right to push Grandma off the balcony of her cliff side home when she starts doing that?

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    lobstrHamilton Nolan
    11/09/13 11:33am

    There is a legitimate argument about reining in escaping revenue, and that is on display in a very obvious way here in Texas. Though the most popular gamblin' game is named after our state, and there's a shitload of gamblers in Texas, casinos are not legal here, and therefore casinos have popped up in little otherwise population:100 towns on the Oklahoma border an hour away from DFW. Those casinos exist exclusively to serve the people of Dallas/Fort Worth since Oklahoma City and Tulsa have their own casinos, and one glance at the parking lot reveals almost 100% Texas license plates. There are two casinos that have started from little piece of shit joints (one of which was literally roofed by a freakin' canvas tent) on the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indian reservations, and they've grown to become (what they call) "World-Class" full-fledged resorts with Vegas-style hotel amenities, spas, etc.

    The same can be said about the horrid town of Shreveport, Louisiana (three hours away) — which installed casinos in the mid 1990s due to the ridiculous "riverboat" loophole (permanently anchoring structures on the Red River, but pretending that they're boats so they can qualify for having a casino). Before the Oklahoma border towns got their casino on, Texans would flock three hours away to Shreveport to gamble — again, the license plates in the parking lots told the tale.

    So, here's how the logic plays out: literally billions of dollars are being spent in those two areas from people who live in DFW. Willing to drive six hours round trip to freakin' Shreveport, these folks are true gamblers, there is no question about this. So they're going to gamble no matter what. Why allow these other states to capitalize on this? These people will gamble with their money no matter what.

    To address the "gambling = blighted city" concept; perhaps that may be true for a shit joint like Shreveport whose only qualities pre-casinos were oil refineries and a dirty shuttered downtown area. Dallas/Fort Worth, by contrast for example, is already a very large well-established metropolitan area, where the addition of a handful of casinos is not going to make or break the cities' charm and add sudden blighted areas — a casino here and there would simply draw the folks who already blow their gamblin' dollars in neighboring states. It's billions a year in revenue already being thrown out the door.

    Of course, Shreveport and the border towns in Oklahoma would be completely decimated if Texas legalized gambling, which is why it's peculiar to see the Chickasaw nation listed as a donor to political candidates that oppose gambling (presumably for religious reasons.) Funny how that works, ain't it?

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      klemjohansenHamilton Nolan
      11/04/13 3:15pm

      Indiana opened that door just a tiny crack and now it's blown wide open. There's no closing it now. The cat is out of the bag and also a third more awful metaphor.

      It's not even a matter of borrowing against the future to pay for the present. It's worse. It's robbing Peter to rob Paul.

      Reply
      <
      • Read More
        BabySeaTunaklemjohansen
        11/04/13 5:11pm

        Truth. Same thing happened here in Maryland and our infrastructure is still crumbling and our schools are still poor as hell. Well, except for in Howard and Montgomery counties (two of the richest counties on the east coast iirc,) but let's face it, none of those people are blowing their money at casinos. At least not at the rate the casinos need to survive.

        Reply
        <
    • Read More
      SweetCaroline12Hamilton Nolan
      11/04/13 3:43pm

      My parents live in the Catskills, literally a quarter of a mile where they want to build one of these casinos. I grew up there, and I've personally seen the deterioration the town has experienced over the last 15 years. There are no jobs. Our two manufacturing plants are gone, there is hardly any retail, and EVERYONE is broke. Unless you work for the government or commute to NYC, there are no options. Kids I graduated high school with who were less fortunate than me are practically forced onto welfare. Our schools are getting worse, and more cuts are on the horizon.

      Do I think a casino is a perfect solution? No. Am I nervous that they have HUGE plans to expand over the next 15 years? Yep. But it just feels like there aren't any other viable solutions right now. These are my people and if someone says "1,500 Jobs", I'm going to have to vote in their favor.

      Reply
      <
      • Read More
        Gov'tOnStrikeSweetCaroline12
        11/04/13 6:21pm

        I used to work for a certain state university a couple years ago and lived right outside Ellenville. My main concern with building a new resort/casino is that it and Monticello will cannibalize each other. That being said, you can't really get more depressed than the area is now, and I don't see any developers itching to bring back the Borscht Belt glory days, so I figure a casino won't make the place worse.

        The whole situation sucks, and casinos aren't the best option, but it's the only one we have now so I guess I feel the same as you

        Reply
        <