Friday, May 25, 2007

Casinos: Wrong for Massachusetts

Representative Dan Bosley gives a good run down on why casinos are bad for Massachusetts. It's good to know elected officials are doing what they are supposed to.

Bosley opposes casinos not on a moral ground, but because of "dollar-and-cents." Here's just one blurb.
If studies are right and Massachusetts's residents are spending 1.1 billion dollars in Connecticut, we must remember that we only recapture the net gaming revenues to the state. That means that we would recapture a little over $100 million. To do this we have to fund a gaming commission at $75-80 million (comparable to what other states spend), have to fund increased law enforcement at around the same cost, and have to pay for the social costs that we incur from increased gambling activity. That is not a moral issue, but a dollar and cents issue because it increases our cost for social programs. There are other costs to concern us, but these alone far outweigh the recaptured revenue.

Read the whole thing, it's not overly long and has some good info in it - including stuff I didn't already know.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm lazy and won't drive all the way to Foxwoods to blow away some dough, but if there was a casino down the street, I'd be golden.

I would question using only the figure of money spent at foxwoods as a barometer for how much people would spend at a casino in middleboro.

About Ryan's Take