American states bet on casinos for budget shortfalls

| 11/08/2010

(Reuters): State governments eager for paydays in hard times are doubling down on gambling even though America’s casino industry is still sliding from a peak reached three years ago. Desperate for revenue to ease budget shortfalls totalling an expected $127 billion or more this fiscal year alone, lawmakers and governors are championing casino deals and looking past flashing signs of distress. Atlantic City, which once had the only casinos on America’s densely populated East Coast, is losing so much business to rivals that New Jersey’s governor is pressing a plan for the state government to take over the faded seaside resort’s gambling area.

 
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  1. Turtle's Head says:

    We missed a great opportunity by delay and pandering to religious extremists.

    • Anonymous says:

      What are you talking about? What delay (we only just starting talking about it)? What great opportunity did we miss? Why do you think the issue is about religious extremism? Do you suppose that there are no other objections to it?

      • Turtle's Head says:

        The fact we are talking about it now is the delay.  We could have moved on this years ago and paid for a proper school system with it.  But now everyone is on the gambling bandwagon and Cayman’s chance of being at the front edge of the market has gone. 

        And have you heard the opposition – Pastor this, Pastor that, Pastor Sell By Date as far as I am concerned.

        Now excuse me while I get back to someone online gambling. 

        • TCM29 says:

          Gambling is nothing more than a tax on stupid, and is not in the best interest for the Cayman Islands. I am not affiliated with any church group, but speak from results I have observed in the US. It will only make the poor more dependent, increase crime, and attract the kind of tourism you really don’t want. You cannot beat a man at his own game, and Vegas was not built on winners.

        • Anonymous says:

          Only a fool rushes headlong into something so major without examining its implications. 

          I don’t think Billy Adam is a religious extremist by any stretch of the imagination.  There are many people who have concerns about the social impact of legalizing casinos in particular that don’t have a religious bone in their body.

          I am still waiting to hear what the "great opportunity" was that we missed. If casinos are going to be our economic saviour I don’t see how we missed the board just because some casinos have opened up elsewhere. If it is that vulnerable then you really have to question the wisdom of it.    

      • Anonymous says:

         Would you accept then that we are "missing" a great opportunity? 
        🙂