How does gambling effect a community financially or communally?

svtouchdown0909: How does gambling effect a community financially or communally?
I realize the matters of crimes dealing with casinoes and gambling, but there are other reasons why gambling hurts a community and the financials to a community. Please do not give me a yes or no answer, but give me an open-ended question.

Answers and Views:

Answer by assmouth p
well there’s jobs. if the govenrment’s running the casino the jobs are union and the pay is better

but poor people are gonna go there, drop their welfare money in the slot machine. then there’s the hookers hanging around.

in montreal best idea they had was putting the casino on an island. you can take the train, or drive out there. if they put it downtown like they want to, it’s going to be this constant temptation for the people that live around there

and that was never the idea. we built the casino saying more tourists would come. it wasn’t so we could make money off the people here.

Answer by dasvidas
Legalized gambling is the redistribution of wealth, in an anti-socialism kind of way. Instead of taking money away from wealthy and distributing it to the poor, “gaming” takes money away from the lower classes and gives it to the casinos and the wealthy casino owners. I’ve been to casinos on dozens and dozens of occasions, and can personally attest that the majority of persons gambling are the elderly. Let’s be honest about leaglized gambling – this isn’t Casino Royale where multi-millionaires are standing around the craps table having their busty, scantily clad girlfriends blow on the dice for good luck. These are people’s grandparents putting their social security checks into nickel slot machines just to pass the time.

This is a hot topic in my community, and the supporters of the casinos stress the amount of tax revenue it will bring to the state. The question is at what cost? The perfect example of how gambling can destroy a city is Atlantic City, NJ. Atlantic City used to be a vibrant, sea side town. Now it is one of the more dangerous places in the state. It used to be a family friendly vacation destination steeped in rich tradition including the annual parades held on the boardwalk. Now, its not safe to walk the boardwalk at night.

Will casinos bring jobs? Yes.
Will casinos bring tax revenue? Yes.
Will the casinos bring increased crime? Yes. (which will require some of that “tax revenue” to fund a greater police presence)
Will a lot of this be funded by people who cannot afford to gamble? Yes.

The number one rule of gaming – “the house always wins.” Why do communities think it will be any different this time?

Answer by freebird
Gambling removes disposible income from the community at large. Money that would be spent on local goods and services are redirected to a narrow funnel of expense. Classically, this also serves to channel away disposible income that would contribute to healtier retirement portfolios, leaving the community to deal with less financially capable retirees.

Gambling is also associated at a higher than normal rate with addiction, both to gambling itself, and to alcohol. You will never see an alcohol-free casino.

Since it is relatively easy to cheat as a casino, yet outrageiously profitable to do so, such locations draw undo amounts of organized crime. No secret that the first legal casinos were started by organized crime.

An argument could be made that it increases the tax base, but given that the money spent is usually disposible income, the money would have been expended in a taxable manner anyway. The best that can be said along these lines is that it draws taxable income from locations that do no have casinos.

In fact, that is the purpose of a casino. To draw disposible income away from other locations, and from other goods and services, into the economy local of the casino (and the casino owners). Overall, there is a drain to the general economy with only narrow and short-term benefit to the local economy.

Answer by John Hightower
Some say legalized gambling brings in additional tax revenue. Maybe.

But some people cannot control their gambling habits. They write bad checks. Lose jobs. Lose their homes. Cannot pay their bills. Some turn to criminal activities to raise money to gamble. In these cases, there is the added cost of jailing them, having a trial for them – and (if they cannot pay for an attorney to defend them), then the taxpayers pay for the attorney. And if convicted and required to serve time in jail, or prison, then the taxpayers will probably pay for Social Services to help the family pay their bills.

By the time they get out, the family may have split (divorce) or the kids may have become juvenile troublemakers.