"Talking Points' " barn door sized holes
by Tony Lawrence

10/30/07 -- And again, the (anti casino forces, in this case Casinofreemass) "Talking points" have barn door sized holes in them.

"Nearly all of the state's 351 cities and towns will be within a short drive of a casino".

Nearly all are right now.

"Not one state in the country has ever solved its budget problems with gambling revenues."

Not one state ever solved it's budget problems with any other single source either. Gambling is simply a part of the picture.

"Non-gamblers pay for the massive social costs like child neglect and bankruptcies that the casino gambling industry brings along with it. The industry certainly doesn't pay the bill."

Noted: there is some truth there. You can make similar arguments about all sorts of things: the alcoholic beverage industry, for example. But just because we don't ask for more remediation efforts does not mean we never can. If gambling really is the dark cesspool you think it is, why not push for more laws and taxes to help that?

I think that the reality is a bit different though: most of todays gamblers are recreational and are at little risk of the social horrors you posit. Just the same, I'm all for working to hep those who do have those problems.

"Casinos don't bring an economic multiplier effect to a region" ... "A major reason was because casinos lower a region's standard of living by attracting lots of low wage casino jobs and merely act as a jobs transfer and not a job creator."

Let's ban Mickey D's and DD's and every pizza joint while we're at it, shall we? Those busineses don't attract any other business and have almost nothing but low paying jobs. A casino resort obviously brings new business (just drive to Foxwoods from here and note all the new hotels and restaurants as you get close) and has a lot of very good paying jobs too. Most of the "low pay" jobs will have more to do with the resort than the casino itself - so are you against resorts because they have low wage jobs?

"Over 84% of the state's residents did not travel to a nearby state to gamble in the last year"

???? So what? The implication of "Those gambling inside any Massachusetts casino will be mostly local citizens" is that this is a bad thing.

Look me straight in the eye: There's nothing wrong with recreational gambling.

When there are casinos in MA, I probably WILL gamble more often than I do now - it's a long ride to Foxwoods. But having a shorter trip isn't going to turn me into a gambling addict - if I WERE a gambling addict, I wouldn't care about the long ride.

"a casino gives free alcohol".

The Middleboro casino can't do that, and probably no commercial casino in MA will be able to either.

"Turn One Out of Every Twenty People into a Gambling Addict"

Oh, lordy. This kind of insane rhetoric doesn't help your cause.

* Tony is a regular contributor to OakPointCommunity.org .