Casino gambling would corrupt NH’s healthy image
IF MULTIPLE casinos were legalized in New Hampshire, we would suffer thousands of new pathological gambling addicts, destruction of thousands of families, a pox on New Hampshire’s healthy image, and a negative economic impact equal to an additional recession every 10 years. Those are the facts.
Casino advocates always say that the facts are wrong. Last month at a legislative hearing on casino impacts, the gambling industry revealed its version of the facts. First, the industry is not willing to accept the 50 percent-plus tax rate proposed by legislative casino advocates, threatening to put up honky-tonk slots parlors unless rates are dropped. On casino-related crime, the industry presented an unpublished, industry-funded study that uses data from only four cities selected to bake in the desired conclusions.
Casino opponents rebutted with a crime study published in a top-six, peer-reviewed economics journal and written by a distinguished professor whose research is free from funding conflicts of interest. This study looked at crime data in every U.S. county. Casino counties experience an average eight percent higher rate of the most serious crimes. Legalizing casinos at New Hampshire’s four horse and dog racing tracks would mean 6,000 more crimes, such as physical assault and armed robbery, every year.
Across the other debate sub-topics — cannibalism of the hospitality industry, addiction, bankruptcy, family violence, youth gambling, the tribal gambling loophole, lost workplace productivity — the pattern is the same. Casino advocates openly mock Ph.D. researchers and law enforcement testimony. The gambling industry does not much care that it has lost the debate over the facts.
http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showfast.html?article=63142
