The Mayor of Chicopee Must Really Want Casinos

Now that I've been to a number of Democratic State Conventions, it's not uncommon for me to get all sorts of political mail. Today, when I came home, I found that between my wife and myself, we had gotten not one but four brochures from the Mayor of Chicopee, Michael Bissonnette, with the header: "Resort-Style Casinos: For our Towns. For our towns. For our cities. For a better Massachusetts." Now, I understand that it's a hassle to go through your database and make sure you're only sending one piece of mail to a household -- I did this myself during Susan Falkoff's campaign -- but unless Mayor Bissonnette thinks that the number of mail pieces we get will reflect just how much he wants to be able to have a casino in Chicopee, there's really no reason we should be getting four.

The piece itself describes resort casinos as "a predictable and reliable source of local aid" and details just how much our cities and towns need revenue. It claims that resort-style casinos would "create upwards of $500 million in new annual tax revenues" -- above and beyond the revenue generated through job creation -- and notes that we "can't keep paying for schools, public safety, and roads and bridges in Connecticut." All in all, it makes a good case for increased local aid, but it really avoids the question of whether resort-style casinos are the best way to go about increasing such aid.

If anyone wants a copy, let me know. I have plenty of extras.

[UPDATE]: wbennet over at BMG called the mayor's office to find out who was behind the mailing. The answer was, of course, a lobbying firm: The Dewey Square Group.

Rolling the Dice

Yesterday, I returned from out-of-state to find that the Governor has submitted a plan to allow three casinos in Massachusetts. I'm not particularly bothered by gambling, though I will admit that if opening a casino in the Boston area ends up closing down the Keno parlors in my neighborhood, I will not shed a tear. Anything that causes fewer discarded scratch-off tickets to end up in my driveway can't be all bad. Indeed, I think in the short term these casinos would be a boon -- there's the up-front licensing fees, the construction jobs, and once they're built, the casino jobs themselves. I'm less convinced of the ongoing revenue that the casinos would provide the state, these large companies all seem to have a way of cheating the state out of taxes, but on balance the plan the Governor has put forward is a sensible way to bring casino gambling to the state.

The bigger question is whether we even want to bring gaming to Massachusetts. A majority of residents polled usually support it (58% percent most recently). That said, I imagine that the results would be different if residents were asked whether they wanted a casino in their own town. I do think, however, that those who say that casinos would "change the character" of Massachusetts for the worse are engaging in a bit of hyperbole. A couple of resort casinos aren't going to turn Massachusetts into Nevada. Inevitably, the places that host the casinos will change, but the impact of any resorts on the state as a whole will be small. The bigger question is whether you can control the genie once it's out of the bottle.

Of course, it would be silly to ignore the social ills that seem to come hand-in-hand with casino gambling. The advantage of the resort-style casinos that the Governor is proposing is that many of the tourists coming to these resorts will take the cost of these ills and costs back home with them. That would not generally be the case if the state just, for example, let Suffolk Downs put up slot machines. The big disadvantage of a resort-style casino, however, is that the economic benefits are not generally felt in the surrounding area. A casino's interest is to keep you on their property, close to the gambling floor, and never more than a few feet away from a slot machine. If you leave the grounds to go to a neighborhood restaurant, they've lost that potential revenue. So, while a resort casino may bring more tourists to an area, the number of visitors to local businesses is likely to decrease. This is what makes me very skeptical of any plan to revitalize New Bedford with a casino.

It seems to me that if someone fritters all of their money away on gambling, it's no different than if they had maxed out all their credit cards on designer clothes, electronics, or Faberge eggs. Is sitting in front of a slot machine all day really any different than sitting in a Keno parlor (now legal) or the track (also legal) or day trading on the stock market? So, yes, while I'm sympathetic to the idea that compulsive gambling will increase if we have casinos, it seems to me that anyone with a bus pass or an Internet connection can already do all the gambling they want. Frankly, I'm more concerned about the side industries that flourish along with casinos -- loan sharking, prostitution, money laundering, and other crimes -- not to mention the inevitable corruption that accompanies large sums of money changing hands. I think the Governor is being a little naive when he says that we're going to tackle those problems better than anyone else ever has.

What bothers me is the pattern the Governor seems to be following on these big decisions. For both his casino proposal and the budget, Gov. Patrick went into seclusion for weeks and then emerged with a fully-formed policy. Sure, he sought council from legislative leaders, from advisors and commissions, etc, but I never thought that they were the "We" in "Together we can". It's worrisome to me that the Governor had more inauguration parties than public meetings on expanded gaming. In the time after his election, Patrick often talked about how he wanted to convert his grassroots organization into a vehicle for grassroots governing. One way to do that would have been to include the grassroots in his decision-making process.

Governor Holding Cards Close to his Chest

Governor Patrick, you don't need to show your cards yet, but we're going to have to see your hand before you get any payoff. People already think that the process is rigged in favor of casino gambling -- and in some cases, they're probably right -- that you need to be sure that everything you do is completely transparent. You can hold on to the casino study until you make your final decision, but if you don't release it people are always going to wonder what was so awful in there that the public wasn't allowed to read.

[Update]: Now that I've had some time to think about it, there is one scenario where it makes sense to keep the casino report private. If the report recommends allowing casinos and also lists concessions that the state must seek from Indian tribes and casino developers, it does make sense to keep those under wraps until such time as the Governor gives his Yay or Nay. There's no sense in giving casino proponents extra time to prepare for the eventual negotiations. Still, this report should be released when Governor Patrick makes his decision on whether to allow gaming in Massachusetts -- even if his eventual position is at odds with the study's recommendations.