Raise the Hammer

From [URL=http://goo.gl/jtFU8]Steven Malanga[/URL]:

“Over the long term, g@mbling revenue has failed to hold down taxes, despite supporters’ predictions. New Jersey was the first state to legalize both c@sinos and the l•ttery. When its first c@sino opened in 1978, the state was the fifth most heavily taxed in America, according to the Tax Foundation. Now, despite garnering more revenue from g@mbling than all but four states, its tax burden is the nation’s second heaviest. New York, which brings in the most money from g@mbling, is also the nation’s most heavily taxed state. Louisiana’s state l•ttery started in 1991, followed in 1993 by privately owned video poker and c@sinos. Since 1994, the state’s average per-capita tax burden has increased from $2,080 (in today’s dollars) to more than $3,000. “Initially, when g@mbling came in, it was highly misrepresented at the time as an answer to all our fiscal problems. History has simply proven that not to be true,” Louisiana state senator A. G. Crowe told the press in 2008….

G@mbling’s record as an economic-development tool is no better. Supporters often point to the number of people that local c@sinos or betting parlors employ. But they don’t take into account the employment lost in other industries because of the introduction of g@mbling. The National G@mbling Impact Study Commission, created by Congress, noted in a 1999 report that hundreds of restaurants and bars closed in the greater Atlantic City area after c@sinos began opening, offsetting some of the employment gains. The commission added that when it visited the city in 1998, it found unemployment substantially above the average for the nation and for much of New Jersey.

That situation hasn’t greatly improved with time. A special commission created by Governor Chris Christie noted in a 2010 report that, after nearly 35 years of legal g*mbling, Atlantic City suffered from the public perception that it was “unclean and unsafe” and had never been able to give rise to a meetings-and-conventions business. C*sinos, the report noted, had failed to spawn “non-g*ming amenities” that might attract visitors interested in anything other than g*mbling. The numbers underscore the lack of progress. Median family income in Atlantic City in 1980, according to the census, was $34,800 in 2010 dollars. In 2010, it was $35,500.”