Opinion: Casino gambling a very bad idea in Massachusetts

Thursday, June 10, 2010  

"This hearing of the Senate Ways and Means Committee is to gather public comment on the draft casino gambling legislation proposed by Sen. Stanley Rosenberg, D-Amherst, and Sen. Karen Spilka, D-Framingham.

Mr. Chairman, this proposal is a very bad idea.

The proponents have made their arguments for casinos over slots. "You can glut the market if you go too far, and compromise the viability of the industry you're trying to build," Sen. Rosenberg has said.

But with slot machine parlors like Hollywood Slots in Maine, and resort casinos in New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode Island, don't we actually have a New England casino glut already?

Sen. Rosenberg also said, "All the data shows very clearly that if you want to maximize jobs, you need resort-style casinos. You add very few jobs when you put slots at tracks."

Speaker Robert DeLeo supports the bill passed by the House last April, which creates only two casinos and allows slot machines at the four race tracks in Massachusetts, two of which are coincidently in his district.

The draft bill before you would set aside one of three casino licenses for a Massachusetts tribe. Last month, Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Chairman Cedric Cromwell said that the tribe had made a deal with Fall River to build a complex, including a casino, hotels, mall, spa and a convention center on land along Route 24. Any commuter can tell you that the road is choked morning and evening with cars, so the casino traffic will make that worse unless the state pays to overhaul the road.

But they may not have to, as the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe announced that it will build a casino on a different Fall River parcel near Route 195. While the bill calls for a robust bidding process for the licenses, is there a process to decide between the two competing tribes, or a guarantee that the tribe not chosen wouldn't just exercise its federal rights and build one anyway?"

Get the Story:
Cynthia E. Stead: Casinos a short-term addictive fix (The Cape Cod Times 6/10)