Casinos: economic development or a con job?

It's interesting that articles in the Examiner, "Md. resort warns of failure without slot machines," and the Washington Post, "Arundel Mills entertainment key to casino, developer says," about casino proposals in different parts of Maryland have the same basic theme--that a casino isn't enough in and of itself to right an economy, even though the two articles discuss opposite situations--the western Maryland property is failing, while the Arundel Mills shopping center in Anne Arundel County is very successful.

The situation in Western Maryland is that an "expensive" resort was built in part with state money as a local economic development initiative. But despite the amenity, it wasn't enough, in and of itself to draw significant numbers of customers, so the resort is lagging. (The problem is that there aren't enough other things going on in the area to draw significant numbers of visitors.)

They want to add a casino, but because the profitability would lag compared to locations closer to major metropolitan centers, local officials propose that the state offer better terms than the law allows to a casino group willing to open there.

The Anne Arundel casino proposal is a different story, but no less interesting. There, the proposed operator, the Cornish Company, says that they want to be located next to the Arundel Mills shopping center because it gets so many visitors, and not at the local horse racing track which doesn't--even though making the horse racing industry more successful was the alleged original reasoning behind the passage of legislation allowing casinos in the first place. The horse industry was once much more significant in the state, and still exists, but is withering as other states have more successful racetracks, offering larger purses, in turn drawing better operators.

But the funny thing about the Cornish project is that people who go shop at "the mall" are locals for the most part, out to do their shopping, not to drop hundreds of dollars at slot machines. The likelihood of locals coming to the casino is low, and the desire of casino patrons to go buy something at an adjacent shopping center, when they can find many of the same stores close to home, is also remote. Granted, maybe they want to go to the Lego store or the Bass Pro Shop, stores that are pretty rare, but it's still unlikely.

The article calls attention to how the property will have a steakhouse, two bars, and an entertainment lounge.

Wow!

Seems like a con job to me. Communities (and states) desperate for income will do anything for a buck, even if the money never really comes.

Also see "BALTIMORE OBSERVED: CASHED OUT from Baltimore's Urbanite Magazine. From the article:

John Kindt, a professor of business and legal policy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says gambling sucks money away from the consumer economy and small businesses. Kindt and others estimate that as a slot machine takes in $100,000 per year for casino owners, it eliminates one job elsewhere in the economy, eventually leading to three times that amount in lost consumer spending and taxes paid. Meanwhile, slots force states to absorb more in “social costs,” such as an uptick in gambling addiction. “The taxes charged by Maryland on this amount [of slots income] are miniscule in comparison with what the state will lose,” he says.