Column: Massachusetts headed for heartache

Monday, August 13, 2007  

"From what little I’ve seen, Massachusetts is heading into heartache. I feel sorry for the people of Middleboro, who bought into a glitzy package from the Mashpee Wampanoag Indians. It reminds me of West Warwick residents and their dream that a Harrah’s/Narragansett Indian casino would be a godsend.

[Rhode Island Gov. Donald] Carcieri last week said of Middleboro, “Everybody gets lured by this notion that … there’s a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I just don’t think life is ever that simple.”

Carcieri hopes Massachusetts winds up turning its back on casinos. Connecticut already has them, of course, and Carcieri says that casino gambling in Massachusetts would further hurt Rhode Island, open the door to casinos in northern New England as well, divide the gambling pie into smaller slices, and turn the region off course.

He’d prefer Rhode Island not have to try to win a new gambling war. “I would rather see us grow the economy in other areas and [be] less dependent on gambling.”"

Get the Story:
M. Charles Bakst: Mass. casinos on R.I.’s horizon (The Providence Journal 8/12)
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Another Opinion:
Phil Primack: What’s old is new in casino debate: Gambling’s issues unsettled (The Boston Herald 8/13)