Phila.'s gambling winnings
By Gregory C. Fajt (Philadelphia Inquirer, 11/30/09) http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20091130_Phila__s_gambling_winnings.htmlThree years after the opening of Pennsylvania's first slots casino, gambling has produced significant benefits statewide and in the Philadelphia area. In a difficult job market, the nine operating casinos have created 8,346 family-sustaining jobs, including a total of 1,600 at PhiladelphiaPark in Bucks County and Harrah's Chester in Delaware County. Thousands of other professionals in various trades have been employed in the construction of casinos statewide. In Philadelphia, the SugarHouse and Foxwoods projects will employ more than 1,000 people when they open, and the first-phase construction of the two facilities is expected to provide work for an additional 2,500. Meanwhile, gaming revenue is now being retained within Pennsylvania's borders instead of going to New Jersey and other states. More than $3 billion in revenue has been returned to the commonwealth in the form of tax revenue since that first casino opened, and two-thirds of that has been used to relieve property or wage taxes. Philadelphia has received $112 million in wage-tax relief from revenues generated by casinos operating elsewhere in Pennsylvania. That number is expected to increase when the city's casinos open. Slots play has also provided $220 million to local governments that host casinos or are near them, providing funding for hundreds of projects, including road and public-safety improvements, economic development and tourism efforts, and community recreation. Once the two Philadelphia casinos are fully operational, projections show that the city will eventually receive more than $25 million a year in new tax revenue as a result. Meanwhile, contrary to the predictions of some critics, casinos have not been a hotbed of significant criminal activity. They have been safe for visitors, and most of the criminal incidents linked to them have been minor, with the perpetrators swiftly apprehended and prosecuted. This is due to complex, reliable casino monitoring systems as well as the on-site staff provided by the Gaming Control Board, the State Police, and the casinos. All of this has been at no cost to Pennsylvania taxpayers, because the costs of gambling oversight are borne by casino operators. As this new industry continues to grow, the Gaming Control Board will remain dedicated to serving the state according to the highest standards of regulatory oversight, while ensuring that casinos continue to produce the expected employment and revenue. Bruce Barron’s response to Greg Fajt’s article: My son loved reading George Orwell’s classic Animal Farm. I used to tell him it was a bleak satire of the deceptive, self-serving Soviet Communist leadership. I now tell him that Orwell masterfully foresaw the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board.
While collecting salaries that Snowball and Napoleon would have drooled over, Greg Fajt and his Gaming Control Board colleagues promise to “remain dedicated to serving the state according to the highest standards of regulatory oversight.” This is the board that is under grand jury investigation for its awarding of licenses, and whose compulsive gambling office the auditor general derided as a do-nothing sham.
Mr. Fajt continues to glibly celebrate the jobs created by casinos and the revenue scooped up by Harrisburg, while happily ignoring the uncontested evidence (well documented by recognized, unbiased experts like UNLV’s Bill Thompson) that slots are a significant negative drain on Philadelphia’s economy.
Even without Foxwoods and Sugarhouse operating, Philadelphia Park and Harrah’s Chester are separating unfortunate losers from $12 million a week, or about $600 million a year. More than half of that goes to Harrisburg. Mr. Fajt brags that he is giving $112 million of it back to Philly. Big deal. Orwell might say: “All casino apologists are equal[ly deceptive], but some are more equal than others.”
It is widely established that casino gambling does lead to increased crime, but that the crime does not happen at the casinos—it happens wherever addicted gamblers unlawfully get hold of funds to feed their habit. (Just ask the taxpayers of the Ridley School District, the victims of one such six-figure embezzlement.) Meanwhile Mr. Fajt continues to congratulate himself that crime does not happen at casinos, where State Police are amply stationed to protect the interests of a few wealthy out-of-state casino magnates. Either the guy in charge of gambling in this state is clueless about the realities of gambling-related crime, or he knows the truth and chooses to hoodwink us anyhow.
Worst of all, Mr. Fajt and his minions somehow manage to go through life with no more concern for the thousands of Pennsylvania families ruined by gambling addiction that Snowball and Napoleon had for Boxer. Our most vulnerable citizens have become disproportionately large contributors to state government, their friends and family suffer horrible misery, and Mr. Fajt calls it a success. This is the moral equivalent of legalizing Russian roulette, with state coffers receiving the resources of those who perish, and boasting that the Gaming Control Board is protecting the integrity of the bullets.
Post-Soviet Russia, like Pennsylvania, experienced a snowballing of gambling. In July 2009 the Putin-Medvedev regime, realizing what casinos were doing to their country, shut them all down. Orwell, were he alive today, could no longer find in Russia a callous, deceptive, government that lived royally with no concern for its subjects. But Mr. Fajt and the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board would suit him just fine. |