Stop Predatory Gambling

Backpedaling starts already in Ohio

by spgadmin

Predatory gambling interests recently spent more than $60 million on an Ohio  referendum to promote a false narrative that legalizing casinos would bring back the state’s fading job base and revive some of its cities. It is a false narrative because casinos milk existing wealth rather than create existing wealth – it is a business based on people losing money.  Now, well after the casino vote, The Cincinnati Enquirer  runs an excellent story about how Detroit is still waiting for the economic revival casinos were supposed to bring when they were passed in that city ten years ago. The same exact story could be written about every other community where casinos have been built in the last twenty years in America.  Read it here:

DETROIT – Urban renewal was part of the plan from the moment Detroit got into the casino business. More than a decade later, it’s still a work in progress.

Solomon says unexpected legal challenges prevented the casinos from locating in a single gambling district on the riverfront. MotorCity, for example, has simply expanded from its original, temporary site inside an old industrial area on the northern edge of downtown. It’s a vast and thriving entertaining complex, but it overlooks a Brinks truck depot on the south, a Goodwill Industries on the north, old warehouses on the east and scores of semi-abandoned houses on the west.

As Cincinnati prepares to break ground for a downtown casino of its own, city and casino officials are anxious to avoid problems encountered elsewhere. If managed properly, Rock Gaming developers say, Cincinnati could be a national model for a casino that does it all: create jobs and generate tax dollars and investment in nearby neighborhoods and commercial districts.

At MotorCity casino, Solomon gestures out a vast picture window and points to one prominent sign of development: Cornerstone Estates, a 180-unit mixed-income housing development, about a quarter-mile east, opposite the J.C. Lodge Freeway.
But even he acknowledges that a revival has not yet come.

Location matters

The MGM Grand Detroit – the city’s largest casino – doesn’t offer much inspiration as an urban renewal hub, either. A modern Las Vegas-style casino, it is surrounded by Interstate 75 on the north, Mich. 10 on the west and a highway on-ramp on the south. Immediately to the east is the DTE Energy building. The casino and utility complex face each other across Third Avenue as cars cut through.

Several blocks east, Greektown Casino-Hotel offers a closer approximation of what Cincinnati’s developer envisions at Broadway Commons. Housed in an old boutique shopping mall, Greektown abuts a few blocks of restaurants, bars and nightclubs that appear to be prospering. Many honor discounted meal vouchers handed out by the casino.

Steve Karagatsoulis, whose family owns nearby Laikon Café, says 10 to 15 percent of his business is from casino patrons. The cafe also has benefited from city improvements to street lighting and pavement, he says. Police keep a close watch on the area.

“The casino brings a lot more visitors down here that otherwise wouldn’t come to Greektown,” he says. “It’s a tourist destination, and it’s made it a lot more visible and safer.”

Still, a vibrant restaurant scene is restricted by the presence of several government buildings in the immediate area: a police station, a jail and the sheriff’s office.
And then there were the financial troubles.

In 2008, Greektown filed bankruptcy, and its original owners, the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, lost the casino. The last Detroit casino to open and later add a hotel, Greektown has the smallest share of local gambling revenues and struggled with debts. The casino now is controlled by a group of institutional investors, Greektown Superholdings.

A few blocks away, Tony Stovall, owner of HotSam’s men’s clothier, offers a harsh assessment of the city’s casinos. He has worked at downtown’s oldest men’s store since he was 21 and bought out the previous owner in 1994. He says gamblers come to play the games, then get in their cars and go back home without ever venturing outside.

“There’s no foot traffic out there,” Stovall says, adding he tries to drum up business from time to time by walking over near Greektown and handing out business cards.

Almost a decade ago, Stovall supported the building of casinos as a way to revitalize downtown, but he has gradually lost hope. Once early on, he recalls, a customer said he couldn’t make payments on a layaway item and needed a refund because he lost all his money at the casino.

“I tried to be patient at first, but it’s a cancer,” Stovall says.

Unique troubles

Former Mayor Dennis Archer cautions casual observers from making direct comparisons between their cities and Detroit. He is blunt: The city’s decades-long decline gave it fewer cards to play, and the city continues to present a tougher economic climate than many. Half of Detroit’s population moved out from the 1950s to the 1990s, Archer notes.

He says the casinos and the tax revenue they provide have been a godsend to the city.

“If we didn’t have casinos, Detroit would have been bankrupt,” he says. “There’s really no comparison. Detroit is different.”

Archer has discussed doing business with Rock Gaming, including possibly investing in the developer’s casinos.

Robin Boyle, a professor of urban planning at Wayne State University, says it’s tempting to think what might have happened if city officials had succeeded in assembling land to put all three casinos together on the Detroit River.

“The original idea was to create a casino entertainment district,” he says. Rising costs and legal challenges by property owners thwarted those plans. Casino hotels didn’t start opening until 2007. “Greektown has more foot traffic in front of it. But the other two are islands next to interstates,” Boyle says.

Brian Holdwick, executive vice president of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp., acknowledges that most of the casinos’ operations are “self-contained,” but says they’ve delivered on promises of jobs, tax revenue and tourism.

Casino benefits

Local residents, too, say it’s tough to blame the casinos for Detroit’s continued woes.

“I can’t say casinos caused our downfall. The car makers and the airlines announced thousands of layoffs,” says Jim Petty, 66, a retired city planner who lives downtown. “The casinos have never come close to equaling the jobs that have left.”

Fernando Galvan, 41, a production rigger from Honolulu, recently was in town on business. He likes to gamble while on the road for work, because Hawaii is one of only two states that don’t have a lottery, much less casinos.

“I’ve been coming here three or four years and never even knew there were casinos here,” he says.

A more typical patron is James Spraddling, 53, a taxi driver whose money lasted just 20 minutes during a recent visit to MGM.

“I make more money as a cab driver since they came here,” he says.