Casinos

Casinos

Casinos have become a form of entertainment for millions of Americans. In fact, Las Vegas, considered to be the home of casino gambling, is third only to Disneyworld and New York for tourism with 260 million visitors yearly. While it is true that casinos generate billions of dollars in revenues hardly any of that makes it back to the local economy as promised by the lobbyists to have casinos built in a city. Effects on local economies include construction jobs are created as well as hospitality jobs within the casino. While it is true jobs are created though usually they go to people outside the communities. The lobbyists for these huge casino companies state that it will also revive a dying economy if they allow casino gambling in their cities. Contrary to this claim though, Atlantic City has the highest unemployment rate in New Jersey. They claim restaurants, movie theaters, and other local businesses will benefit when exactly the opposite is true. Who is going to eat a local restaurant when the casino is offering free meals and drinks to gamblers. By 1996, Atlantic City casinos were devoting 318 million dollars to promotional food and drinks. Also in Atlantic City, over 900 of the 2100 small businesses there closed and the number of local restaurants was reduced from 243 to 146. Richard Byron, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, describes gambling expenditures as Money Extracted From Other Consumer Spending. When casinos come into a small community such as Atlantic City or Biloxi the people living in that community start to go there for entertainment instead of movie theaters, restaurants and other places they used to go to before. In 1994, more people went to the casinos than went to major league baseball parks and more money was spent on casinos than books, albums, and theme parks. It also affects real estate values, in Atlantic city the average cost of a house dropped 24,000.00 after the casinos were built and 11,000.00 for cities close to Atlantic City.

The reason for this may be because of increasing crime rates. The casinos would have everyone believe there is no change in crime statistics after they come in but this is not true. The American Insurance Institute estimates that 40% of all white collar crimes have their roots in gambling. Compulsive gamblers will bet until they have nothing left: savings, family assets, person...

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...age wage and exceed average wages of several other industries. Furthermore the casino gaming industry creates additional jobs in the number of domestic supplier businesses. But at what price? The state and local governments lose on this deal. Compulsive gamblers cost the state an enormous amount of money each year, and with the number of problem gamblers growing with the casinos this is a problem that will not go away. The illegal gaming market is so enormous that its profits each year, surpass that of the top 100 American corporations combining. This includes IBM, all the automotive industries, and many more. The gambling industry makes a lot of promises it knows will not be fulfilled. But, once the revenues are tasted by the local governments they can never turn back. The casinos have lobbyists in Washington as well as local levels. It’s not like the old days of bookies and craps houses, now it’s huge business. The owners of the casinos are the same owners of movie companies as well as amusement parks, they are all just forms of entertainment to them. If people could learn to play responsibly then there really wouldn’t be much harm but when you NEED to win you have already lost.