I would greatly appreciate your comments on this issue – I have not seen much discussion on social media.Â
On December 10th, the Richmond Times Dispatch published an article by Tammie Smith, regarding nearly 700 million dollars in potential lost tax revenue to Maryland casinos. Smith points out that Virginia legislators “have repeatedly killed attempts to legalize casino gambling”, but while the Commonwealth has remained virtuously pure, Maryland is (or will be) raking in billions of dollars from the casino industry.
The two primary objections I’ve heard to legalized gambling is that of increases in addiction and crime. However, it seems somewhat hypocritical to me for the Commonwealth to stick up its nose at gambling, over addiction concerns, while the Virginia ABC Board peddles alcohol to alcoholics. Increases in crime has more to do with increases in population density around the casinos themselves. If I built a world-class casino in Rockville, Va outside of Richmond, the number of people would increase and so would the crime. However, businesses, jobs, tax-revenue, and property values would all increase as well.
Since Prohibition, gambling has been associated with criminal elements and Las Vegas, Nevada has its share of larger than life crime stories. We were all witness to Trump’s casino bankruptcies in Atlantic City, which is obviously something Virginia would want to avoid. There are reasons to feel trepidation over legalized gambling.
Still, if gambling is so terrible and casinos such a problem, why doesn’t Maryland seem to mind?
Far from the Las Vegas Strip, MGM Resorts International opens its $1.4 billion MGM National Harbor casino and resort just outside the nation’s capital this week, advertising a gambling floor “bigger than the White House†and an art collection that includes a large welded collage by Bob Dylan.
But don’t expect Vegas glitz, neon flamingos or ancient Roman replicas here. Jim Murren, chairman and CEO of MGM Resorts International, describes the design as “intentionally monumental,†meaning that the area’s first casino-resort was designed to complement Washington’s iconic landmarks.
The location in Oxon Hill, Maryland, just across the Potomac River from Virginia and next to Washington is also central to its appeal. A plaza with a reflecting pool offers sweeping views of the water and the capital city’s monuments across the way. FoxNews
Maryland doesn’t mind because Maryland’s government is going to collect a windfall in tax-revenue, money they could invest in new schools, new roads, or – it’s a long shot – for police and emergency personnel. Heck, Maryland could even pay down some of its debt! (I’m just kidding, it’s Maryland).
When the United States banned killing horses for horse meat, the industry moved across the border into Mexico, where the most horrific and inhumane practices for slaughtering horses horrified the American public. After a great deal of pressure was placed on Mexico by the US government, Mexican slaughterhouses began to clean up their act (to a point).
I bring this up, because we never think about the unintended consequences of banning things. A massive casino just went up in Maryland and thousands of Virginians will travel there to gamble over the coming decades. Does Virginia want to trust Maryland to regulate and spend those gambling dollars wisely? Or would Virginia prefer to regulate and profit themselves? Is Oxen Hill really the best place for a Casino, or would it have been better served north-east of Sterling?
An argument could be made that Virginia has higher moral standards than Maryland, but tell that to the thousands of Virginians spending their money and paying taxes in Maryland casinos.
The best argument against legalizing gambling in the Commonwealth is that discretionary spending isn’t rising rapidly. If we open up Casino’s in the Commonwealth, won’t the money spent at the casino simply be diverted from money spent at movie theaters, billiards clubs, nightclubs, bars, or dates to Olive Garden with attractive people you picked up on Tinder? Instead of spreading that money around, won’t it all just kind of move to one place?
When it comes to Casino’s, however, it is important to remember that these aren’t the sorts of businesses you build next to shopping malls or develop in rural areas with interstate access. Casino’s are tourist attractions. Building a casino outside of Washington D.C. is possibly the most intelligent thing that’s happened east of the Potomac since the Ravens were brought back to Baltimore.
Washington D.C. already draws tourists from all over the world. The MGM resort in Oxon Hill, Maryland isn’t there to service the gambling needs of people who live in Maryland. It’s there to tap into a national, if not global, market.
That said, if we did legalize casino gambling in the Commonwealth, towns like Colonial Beach, Virginia would pull in millions of dollars in new tourism. I can imagine playing poker for real money at Riverboat on the Potomac! Imagine a new mini-casino/resort in Virginia Beach down by the pier. Imagine a Casino/Resort built just outside of Martinsville, Virginia by the racetrack. (I apologize, I meant “speedway”). There are real revenue generating possibilities. Do we want to take advantage of them, or send all those dollars to the People’s State of Maryland?
I don’t have the answer. What do you think?
29 comments
Real smart tell the 49 other states ” We love spending tax money on gambling”
This says one thing : Government workers are over pay and should have salaries cut
You can bet to your heart’s content in Virginia so long as you bet on horses, lotto numbers or bingo. You don’t even have to go to the track to bet the horses. There are at least 5 off-track horse betting establishments in Virginia. Still inconvenient? It’s perfectly legal to bet the horses online through websites like TVR. The question isn’t whether gambling should be legal in Virginia, it’s very legal. The question is why our supposedly freedom loving, conservative legislature effectively regulates how Virginians are allowed to gamble. Yet more absurdity from Richmond.
Well here, have another comment.
The media keeps writing minor league garbage like this article that is not worth worth the electricity used to type it.
And meanwhile, communist China keeps manipulating its currency, while the USA racks up an even higher and higher trade deficit. We continue to export jobs and factories to Communist China and Mexico, government subsidized by the US taxpayer of course. Do you even understand that concept Tucker?
And the media? They want to occupy our brains with garbage that means very little to anyone.
And Tucker’s answer to the problem? Kick people off welfare and Medicaid who have had their job vacuumed over to the commies by our impotent, corporate run government, Yea, make healthcare unaffordable, that will fix all our problems.
Yes, conditionally. I don’t gamble and think it’s undesirable but it should be tolerated in a free society.
Whether gambling immoral or not is argumentative, but there is no compelling reason to hold a gun to one’s head to keep them for being foolish. A better method of “regulating” it than the current “it’s ok as long as we can tax the hell out of it” type partnership is to clearly have and enforce criminal laws against fraud (includes cheating). Otherwise, buyer beware.
What we have now IS illogical, unethical and immoral. The state claims it’s only moral to gamble when IT runs a numbers racket.
State run gambling is wrong because,
1. It implies public approval to what many consider immoral.
2. It commits fraud–
a. Commercials are misleading (I’ve always wanted a bill to require the state to publish the number of LOSING tickets with each winner announcement.)
b. The state doesn’t even follow the advertising requirements it requires of non-profit gambling.
c. The state fraudulently claims the money is only used to support education.
3. Research clearly shows this is a tax on those poor in math and that the bulk of support comes from lower income regular players.
4. State gambling workers get premium pay, creating angust with other departments.
5. State wastes millions in celeb endorsements, high-cost advertising, full-color screens in every convenience store, etc. to entice poor to participate in something with which it has a monopoly.
(When I used to commute to Jersey, their lottery had a slogan: “We won’t stop until everyone’s a millionaire!)
Oh yeah, two more things. The net present value of a lottery ticket is $0.23 on the dollar.
and, there IS a way to win the lottery. 1. Get and study all the books. 2. Use regression analysis to pick the best method. 3. Sell the method to someone else!
I couldn’t agree more. There is a great deal of hypocrisy in this issue.
If you want to legalize a vice for the purpose of tax revenue then I’d start with recreational weed.
I think that’s much less damaging (on a community level) than casino gambling.
How many of you think that the original settlers of America, largely Christian Calvinists, would have been in promotion of casino gambling? Seriously?
Maryland is not any kind of shining example, so why bring it up? This bit of scribbling clearly puts money ahead of morals whereas it should be the other way around.
“Still, if gambling is so terrible and casinos such a problem, why doesn’t Maryland seem to mind?” – Well, it’s Maryland. Always needing more revenue to provide more social welfare benefits to undocumented immigrants and other liberal bottom feeders. Oh sure, the excuse will always be that the money will go towards schools, but lives are going to be ruined by gambling addiction. The whole thing is so un-Virginian. You go to one of these gambling meccas (like Vegas), and it is sleazy, raunchy, neon, phony, and with high pressure to separate one from his money without regard to appreciation of any real culture. We have Mt. Vernon, Montecello, and countless other historic sites in our state. Va is a real place. It’s not California, and its not Maryland.
The fact that people drink and can become addicted to alc. is a false equivalency, like saying there is one potential trap a person can fall into, go let’s just add another and the 2 will negate each other, and everything will be fine.
Just look at the local crime stats. Pr. George’s Co. already is a hot-bed of crime before the casino, what do you think it will be now? In short, make Virginia Great Again, don’t make it Maryland.
The Advance at The Homestead would finally be something those east of the Blue Ridge would look forward to
No.
Gambling at casinos does not produce wealth, it only transfers wealth. Casinos do provide some jobs in the entertainment and hospitality industries, but those jobs probably would exist somewhere else if not at the casino.
It does produce wealth, in the classic sense. The buyer exchanges money for an opportunity (really an experience) and both parties leave with what they wanted. If all the buyer wanted was to only win, then they wouldn’t gamble, or continue to gamble.
No.
1. Some gamblers win and learn that you can get money without having to work for it.
2. It is a net loss for the Commonwealth. Yes, tax revenues may seemingly increase but the rest of the gambling money gets funneled out of the state. That is a big loss. That means less money for the economy and potentially more money for bureaucrats. I say “potentially” because you never know what money isn’t getting spend on. Tax revenues may fall in other areas because people purchase less, but you’ll never be able to tag that back to their gambling losses.
3. Casinos seem to be overbuilt. Many are folding. It may be a money loser anyway.
4. Have you ever been to a casino that you’d want to live next to or even near? Some may say Vegas, but most casinos are pretty grimy.
5. It does create crime and that means more social programs.
6. There really is no plus side to gambling. Gains are fleeting and eventually the House wins (and sometimes they go bankrupt too).
7. It is an additional tax on the poor. Most people who lose money actually need money (if you can’t afford to lose, don’t gamble). They dig a deeper hole and, again, increase the need for more social programs.
You realistically need to always ask yourself who is too push this idea and are they getting paid on their positions on this issue. Just look to Florida for an example to see the political payoffs and vast amounts of cash distributed around the state to individuals when this came under discussion when tribal gaming was under approval consideration in the state. The one thing you can count on this bringing without fail is additional opportunities for corruption in the state.
I thought we would be getting a casino at the Pamunkey reservation.
No! Forget moral standards and look at quality of life. Gambling brings misery, and riches for a few. The jobs are low-skilled, with no future. For a prime example – Look at Atlantic City, N.J. Before gambling came, Atlantic City was a tired, fading beach town. People thought gambling would be its saving; boy were they WRONG! Gambling has brought nothing but the mob, graft, porn shops and seedy liquor stores, bums & addicts, and accompanying sky-rocketing crime! You can’t walk the boardwalk without tripping over all the bums and hang onto your wallet/purse. Don’t even think about strolling around there after dark.
Yeah, MD has gambling and it’s depressing Cambridge even further.
Valid points.
Virginia has already legalized it in the form of lotto tickets, the worst statistical game and the one with the most disproportionate impact on the poor, while games such as poker (which is not even a house-favored game, as the casino is not the opponent) and table games (which have, on average, a 52-48 advantage for the house) remain unavailable. If anything, the latter 2 choices should be legal and the lotto & slots should stay out. In a balanced budget state, this revenue would go a tremendous way
With that logic, let’s get rid of liquor, beer, and wine while we’re at it 😛
Yes, and Trump went bankrupt how many times with his Atlantic City casinos, and now he is president elect? The current GA in Virginia will never let gambling out of committee.
And, what have we accomplished with the lottery? Nothing but throwing money away. As far as the liquor business goes, there is no way for Virginia to get out of the business. Even if sold, it would still end up sucking the taxpayer dry in regulatory and enforcement costs. Selling what is a highly profitable state agency is another lame brain Tea Party fantasy.
A little off the subject of this article, but I really appreciate Va’s ABC Stores. They are clean, safe, low pressure, and not at all the sleaze that one finds in the District where there are drunks hanging around outside. I was very glad McDonnell didn’t get his way on that one.
“No! Forget moral standards and look at the quality of life. Gambling brings misery, and riches for a few.”
This is exactly how voting for Donald Trump can best be described. A gamble with no moral standards, who brings misery, and riches for a few.
And Hillary, nothing but vomit.
Deal me in!
What’s your game? I’m a poker guy myself.
1. Horse racing
2. Black Jack
I grew up on the other side of I83 in Timonium, Maryland from the Horse Track at the State Fairgrounds. It was awesome. Now, if I could gamble on Jousting competitions, O’ brother! Used to be the state sport of Maryland.
You list many upsides and few downsides. Even the downsides seem minor. Like bankruptcies. That just shows poor management and is more a detriment to the owners than the state. Nevada is famous for low taxes because of gambling. Let’s be famous for low taxes, also!
Fantastic point!