Rockefeller Institute:
Gambling Adds To Long-Term Budget Imbalances
Revenues Lag State
Spending, Creating Constant Expansion Pressure
Gambling revenues dropped
by almost 3 percent in the just-closed fiscal
year, according to a
new report
released today by the Rockefeller Institute of
Government. Casino, race track casino, and video
slots revenue declined by an even greater 6.5
percent, when revenues from new racino openings
in Pennsylvania and Indiana are not included.
Damning to the notion of
gambling as a long-term budget fix is the
report's finding that new types of gambling "do
not keep pace with traditional tax revenues and
government expenditures over time ... [and] may
add to, rather than ease, long-term budget
imbalances." The report examined gambling in all
the states over the period 1998-2009.
"This new report proves
false the industry's sweet promises of " limited"
gambling as a fix for budget problems," said Jim
Rubens, chair of Granite State Coalition Against
Expanded Gambling. "Gambling dependence is
budgetary quicksand, sucking state after state
into more types of gambling in more locations."
Limited gambling's broken
promises in 2009 (so far):
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Revenue from
Illinois'
nine casinos plummeted almost 24
percent, forcing the state to permit
over 45,000 additional slot machines in
bars, restaurants, and social clubs
throughout the state.
Connecticut
Governor M. Jodi Rell, facing sharp
revenue declines from her state's two
tribal casinos, earlier this year
proposed legalizing 1,000 keno slot
machines in bars throughout the state.
The
Pennsylvania
legislature is about to legalize table
games at its existing casinos and
racinos, though backers of that state's
2004 authorizing legislation promised
table games would never be needed.
In
Maine,
Bangor's Hollywood Slots management
recently announced its desire to add
table games, even though voters were
promised that this would not be
necessary when racinos were legalized in
2003.
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