A Bad Bet

by Fr. Roger J. Landry - September 28, 2007

Governor Deval Patrick's September 17 announcement to seek to license three Resort Style Casinos in the Commonwealth, including one here in southeastern Massachusetts, is a unwise wager.

With gambling, the house always wins. Those who gamble recreationally know this and wisely go to a casino with a limit they're prepared to lose. They know that the odds that they will win more than they lose long-term are infinitesimal. It's only the addict who goes to the casino convinced that he is really going to win.

What goes for individuals goes also for communities. By licensing casino gambling, the citizens of our commonwealth will lose more than we gain. If we think otherwise, we haven't learned the wisdom of the average recreational gambler.

The $450 million that Governor Patrick projects the state will gain in annual revenues will be outweighed by gambling's enormous social costs in terms of elevated rates of depression, suicide, alcoholism, broken broken marriages and families, defaults on loans and credit card bills, foreclosures and bankruptcies. The 20,000 jobs that will be gained will be dwarfed by the 160,000 to 380,000, according to the lowest and highest estimates, of those who will either lose their jobs or have them negatively affected by gambling addiction.

Governor Patrick candidly acknowledges that "some of the impact of casino gambling is negative," but thinks that that negative impact is manageable. He has announced that 2.5 percent of the casino's gross revenues would be to try to treat gambling addictions. While he is right to recognize the problem, his response to it is terribly inadequate. We would never legalize addictive narcotics for economic purposes or think that issues of concern for the common good would be satisfied by setting aside one out of every 40 dollars earned by drug dealers to treat the new wave of addicts. Yet that is what the Governor is preparing to do with casino gambling.

Studies show that pathological or problem gamblers constitute four percent of the population, but that percentage is substantially higher within 50 miles of a casino. Even for the 96 percent who are able to gamble responsibly, however, there are other issues to consider.

The first involves the poor. Studies are unanimous in showing that the lower one's socio-economic status, the more likely one is to gamble. That means that the tax revenues generated by casino gambling would effectively be a regressive tax on the neediest among us. Not only are casinos inefficient ways of raising money for programs — what a state gains through gambling revenues is often offset by siphoning off discretionary spending from the local economy — but the poor end up losing the most. Many of those with low-incomes look at gambling not just as a recreation, but as an investment they hope will pay dividends toward a better life. But it's an objectively bad investment and, by allowing casino gambling, a state becomes a bad investment advisor to one of its most vulnerable populations. The ripple effects of making the poor poorer will obviously affect the rest of the economy and the common good.

Then there are the other social costs to casinos. Many local small businesses — restaurants, retail stores, hotels, entertainment venues, and others — are driven out of business, no longer able to compete. The strain on local communities because of increased traffic can become unbearable even with the best improvements in infrastructure.

Finally, there's the indisputable rise in crime in areas around casinos, as addicts seek ways either to recover money they lost or find money to gamble again, and as other people attracted to the crowds, like prostitutes and drug dealers, move in. With the huge sums of money involved, the possibility of political corruption also grows. That is why the 11 elected district attorneys in the Commonwealth on Monday asked for a meeting with the Governor to discuss the undeniable increase in property crime, vehicular theft, child neglect, prostitution and organized crime that come with casinos gambling.

Sometimes the lure of big casino jackpots can blind individuals to the reality that the house always wins and that gamblers therefore lose. But the same lure can blind politicians into making similar miscalculations. Citizens of our commonwealth and our state legislators should oppose the governor's plan. Gambling is as bad "economic planning" for a state as it is for families and individuals. It's a losing bet in which we would squander not just money, but several goods that are more valuable than money — and even priceless.

Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.