Why Casinos Are The Wrong Choice

The question of casino gambling has put the commonwealth at a crossroads. As a candidate and in his stirring inaugural address, the governor eloquently reminded us that we're all in this together; that we share the awesome privilege and responsibility as trustees for what makes Massachusetts special, and that we share ownership of the challenges that are all about us - the broken bridges, schools, and communities of the commonwealth.

Those challenges are enormous, requiring a lot of money but, more importantly, requiring political will and leadership for the kind of fundamental changes that are required of us. Casinos promise, at best, a small percentage of the revenues we'll need and, worse, exacerbate some of the fundamental problems we need to address. We can - and must - do better.

What's so bad about casinos?

For starters, let's look to our neighbor to the south. There are thousands of stories of just what Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun have done to the surrounding communities in Connecticut; a cornucopia of violent crime, prostitution, drugs, depressed property values, and, of course, the depraved and luckless gambler.

Then there's the small matter of gambling addiction. With increasing technical precision, slot machine manufacturers have engineered these things to, at once, better reinforce addictive behavior and better casino profits. Even the gambling industry's own study clearly shows that the population of addicts doubles within a radius of 50 miles around newly established casinos. The governor's proposal for three resort casinos puts almost 90 percent of the state's population within this 50-mile radius. The proposal reserves some of the state's take from the slots to expand addiction treatment programs. But it also grossly understates what it will cost to treat the addicts we shouldn't be creating in the first place.

What about the jobs argument? There are competing and contradictory assessments of how many jobs the proposed casinos will create. What's not debatable is the impact the resort casinos will have on neighboring businesses. What Wal-Mart has done to small family-owned businesses, resort casinos will do as well. Yes there will be new jobs at the casinos, but yes there will be fewer jobs in local shops, restaurants, and hotels. We've invested a great deal of public money in the Hynes Auditorium and the Boston Convention Center, just two of many institutions whose viability will be sorely tested if we allow destination resort casinos in Massachusetts. By all accounts the introduction of casino gambling will also have a negative affect on the lottery, a vital funding mechanism for municipalities.

But what's worst and most disappointing about the proposal is that it sells us short. Casino revenues, even by the rosiest estimates, hardly make a dent in addressing our budget needs. Moreover, casino gambling amounts to a tax on the poor. Yes, the wealthy also gamble, and it really shouldn't be the state's business to tell people how to invest or spend their money anyway. But, sadly, there's no escaping the simple reality that gambling losses disproportionately affect those among us least able to afford them.

It is my hope that, when we put the idea of casino gambling behind us as I sincerely hope we soon will, the governor will lead us to and in the long-needed debate about a real fix for the state's budget crisis, our broken tax system. Until we have a progressive income tax in Massachusetts, we're stuck pursuing half-fixes or half-baked ideas. I fully appreciate what it will take, including a Constitutional amendment that has been blocked at the ballot on several occasions, to move in this direction. But, with courageous leadership, we can. We dare not do less, and relying on resort casinos is so much less.