When the Horseshoe opened in Cleveland a couple years ago, I happened to be in the area for a wedding, and I couldn’t believe how excited these people were to get a casino! They were saying how they’d finally be a real city, and the TV news showed the people lining up on the street to be the first ones in. Everyone was talking about it, and the reporters were even explaining on TV how you had to always put your card into the machine to get your points, and then showed the chart of what the points were worth!
The casino was the only topic of the day, so even sports talk radio tied it in by saying, “With this new amenity, can we attract top-tier free agents to play sports in Cleveland?” I’ve never called in to a radio show, but I was about to vomit, so I had to do it.
They went to commercial but used the teaser, “Stay tuned, you’re going to want to hear what James from Las Vegas has to say!” Well, I told them like it is! I started by saying I was in the casino industry and lived in Las Vegas. I said that of all the things you could emulate about the great cities of the world, casinos were not one of them. I said that the people shown on TV waiting in line were basically the old, infirm, unemployed, and uneducated, lining up like sheep.
I said the whole thing was pathetic.
The talk show hosts were not happy. They cut me off, then said, “What a hypocrite—he said he works for a casino, but he doesn’t think we should have casinos here?!!” Oh well, I tried.
You see, I’ve seen locals casinos around the nation. If an already great city decides to get casinos, I think there’s no harm done, but if a depressed area gets casinos hoping for an economic turnaround, good luck! Tell me how good the education system is now in Tunica, Mississippi. Tell me how nice the paved roads are near the boardwalk in Atlantic City. Tell me about the economic revival that came to Gary, Indiana. Tell me about the nice restaurants in downtown Joliet.
I look at casinos like bars or cigarette stands. If bars are legal, and people are OK with that, then you might as well have them spread out around the country. You wouldn’t want people to have to drive (or fly) 1000 miles to get to the nearest bar, would you? That’s not environmentally conscious.
That said, most locals casinos will not economically revive an area. In fact, the opposite seems true. The casino is a black hole. Local restaurants and bars have a very tough time competing with the casino, which has gaming revenue allowing it to use predatory pricing on dining; that is, the casino can comp meals, which local restaurants can’t afford to do.
Locals casinos are generally not destination resorts. Many of them have no real entertainment to speak of, an unimpressive hotel if any at all, and the bulk of the customer base is made up of local day-trippers. What happens to the guy who lives five minutes from the new casino? He surely goes every night; what else is there to do? He loses all his money quickly. People who live 30 miles out last a little longer, because they visit perhaps only four days a week. But they, too, will be busted. The casino’s event horizon is about 100 miles out. Within that radius, all money will be sucked into the casino, never to escape.
What of the new jobs? Have you ever been to a gambling town where the dealers came from the local low-skilled workforce? They get a dealing job, but then blow their new income by gambling in their off hours. The casino black hole is such an efficient destroyer that revenue often slows after the first few years. This is attributed to economic conditions or competition, but sometimes it’s partially due to the fact that the casino already busted everyone within a 100-mile radius!
If you really want the neighborhood to survive and thrive, you probably have to make sure that there are alternatives to casino entertainment, or even restrict gambling by the locals, or at least the casino employees themselves. The casinos in the Bahamas do not allow Bahamians to gamble. Those casinos are there to extract money from the foreign tourists!
In the case of Cleveland, I believe that there are entertainment options in the downtown area other than the casino, so things might work out. But it’s still pathetic.
I agree whole-heartedly and couldn’t have said it better. There should be an entrance “bond” of at least $500 to even enter the casino, as is the case in some foreign casinos, to keep the poor from wasting their time and money in such a place. Unfortunately the laws in the Bahamas have just created other illegal and unregulated casinos for locals.
Detroit would be another great example.
I live about 10 miles from the Cleveland casino…and i have no desire to go there. I do like to go to Las Vegas to eat, drink and gamble at both the Strip and locals casinos. I think people go to a casino for different reasons. Some go just to gamble. Others, like to go to eat, gamble, drink, and be entertained. Las Vegas can offer so many more choices along with better weather unlike Cleveland. In downtown Cleveland, you go to ONE casino to gamble, maybe eat, and then go home. That’s it. Certainly Las Vegas has many more choices and options. Finally, the casino has created jobs, but certainly has not created any new financial windfall to fix the horrible schools and city services. See you with my money in Vegas my friend.
MGM has finally started serious construction in downtown Springfield, MA. This area was hit hard by an F-3 tornado about 5 years ago but is and was crime ridden for quite some time. The sheeple think this will be the salvation of the city, making everyone rich and everyone will want to come there (the basketball HOF is across I-91 already).
When it opens you will see the exact same reaction, lemmings lined up to waste their EBT funds and SS checks in penny slots set at the State minimum payback (like Plainfield). The TV stations will interview low IQ politicians (all of them) who will have already eagerly spent the anticipated tax revenue on worthless social programs.
Five years after opening crime and poverty will be up, tax revenue will be down and somehow it will be someone else’s fault. This is repeated over and over again across the country. Stupid people.
When casinos are concentrated in a few areas they can thrive. Only people who can afford to travel there have the dough to lose there. Unless you’re lucky (rare) or an accomplished AP (even rarer and not me) you just pay to play. If you like that and can afford it, fine. If not, stay out.
I seriously think there should be means testing for casino patrons. Perhaps I’m too smart.
Excellent article!
Cleveland seems like a black hole to me! Especially for pro sports teams or pro players that end up in Cleveland. It seems like you didn’t fit the narrative on what the presstitute disc jockeys wanted to hear. You told them what they needed to hear, not what they wanted to hear. That’s why they probably cut you off. They didn’t want to hear words of gloom & doom, Negative Nancy, or Debbie Downer when the city is opening their first casino.
Local casinos are a black hole for the masses, and act as an economic revival for the few. There are a few small casinos in the state in which I live. I’m not sure of the ownership of the casinos but every time that they get threatened by big corporate casino competition wanting to move in they go on the defensive big time. I would have to figure that the ownership of the casinos is operated by the old money/old guard in the state I live in and they are connected politically and have the cash to launch their own counter attacks to the corporations that threaten their monopoly.
Beautiful honest essay. I love blackjack. Have read every book and considered an advantage player, however after 50+ years of trying to be James Bond I long ago decided to keep my day job. So I’m happy Lake Charles is six hours away and my BFF and I can go every six weeks for a comped one nighter.
As for LVN even at 74 I go every six months but limit my gambling action to Freemont Street which I throughly enjoy.
Gambling like drinking to me is for celebration not medication.
To make the situation worse, there are few local casinos outside of Las Vegas that offer games that are consistently playable. In most places there simply isn’t enough competition to drive the casinos to compete. In places like Missouri, the wisdom of the legislature has been to actively limit competition by putting a cap on available casino licenses. Brilliant! As a result you don’t see anything playable in Kansas City. A little better in St. Louis, but not much. So no, there aren’t going to be any long term winners contributing to the local economy in most local casinos.
We stopped playing in local casinos and concentrate our play in Las Vegas where we can at least get an even game, and I think, support the local economy.
I agree.A walk around Highland near the ultra profitable San Manuel casino will confirm it has sucked every $ out of the local economy.
[…] A contrary school of thought holds that casinos are strictly for poor people, sucked into a 100-mile-radius event horizon, their money never to be seen […]
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