Legislation | Opinion

Opinion: The great gambling debate resurfaces in Massachusetts

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

'Go to a casino on a weekday morning and you’re likely to see pitiful people who look like they can’t afford to be pumping cash into slot machines and can’t stop themselves. But go there on a Saturday night and the place is filled with folks who are there for entertainment and will go home satisfied and still solvent.

That’s the problem. Compulsive gambling takes a terrible toll. But research indicates that roughly 5 percent of all gamblers become problem gamblers. Limiting the entertainment choices of 95 percent of the people in order to protect 5 percent from temptation doesn’t make a lot of sense - especially with temptation waiting just over the state line or at a Lottery counter just down the street.

If I had my way, gambling would be considered just another entertainment option. If a casino operator wanted to invest in Massachusetts, bringing jobs and the tax revenue businesses generate, it would be treated like a company wanting to build a mall, theme park, industrial complex or an other large development: Address community concerns through a planning process, require the company to mitigate adverse impacts. Say thanks for helping build the Massachusetts economy.

State and local officials provide generous tax breaks, infrastructure grants and sometimes loan guarantees to lure employers to the state. The casino industry needs no such incentives. All they want is permission to do business here. But their opponents demand cost-benefit analyses: Prove you’ll create 15,000 jobs. Prove that gambling revenue will keep the state from ever having another budget shortfall. Prove that new casinos in other states won’t cut into your projected market share."

Get the Story:
RICK HOLMES: Sin, freedom and casinos converge in Mass. Legislature (The Fall River Herald News 9/20)