Comment 86024

By AnjoMan (registered) | Posted February 07, 2013 at 18:27:43 in reply to Comment 86008

You have to remember that the city only recieves a very small percentage of the total revenues from the casino, whether the Flamborough site or a potential downtown site. In order for the city to get a $5 million kickback, the casino has to pull in $100 million.

That means that even if only 25% of casino revenue comes from local citizens, that is still $25 million that has to be spent by our taxbase for the city to get its $5 million. There is a $20 million dollar gap between what we collectively would need to gamble away at a casino and how much the city would actually benefit from.

Thats $20 million in lost economic potential. Is that a good deal? I don't think so. If our only impetus for a downtown casino is to guarentee our 5% share of OLG revenue, I say we are better off replacing that income by raising taxes.

EDIT: also, before you say that our city's poor cannot afford higher taxes, just remember that, according to [this report] (http://www.hamilton.ca/NR/rdonlyres/C7B7E1CE-8E34-49BC-AD3B-2A57DAFACC5B/0/Dec03EDRMS_n384322_v1_BOH12040_Health_and_Social_Impacts_of_Gambl.pdf) OLG gets 36% of its income from 4.6% percent of patrons who are problem gamblers. Can our problem gamblers afford a casino?

Comment edited by AnjoMan on 2013-02-07 18:30:13

Permalink | Context

Events Calendar

There are no upcoming events right now.
Why not post one?

Recent Articles

Article Archives

Blog Archives

Site Tools

Feeds