Casino Myths

Myth vs. Reality: Five Myths of Resort Casino Gaming

Myth #1

Myth:
Resort casinos won't generate the millions of dollars that proponents claim.

Reality:
Massachusetts casinos will recapture much of the estimated $1 billion spent annually by Bay State residents at the Connecticut casinos and Rhode Island slot parlors, as well as capture much of the estimated $568 million now spent by Rhode Islanders and residents of New Hampshire and Maine at southern New England’s resort casinos and slot parlors.

New England is an estimated $5 billion gaming market—with just over $3 billion in total spending now commanded by the Connecticut casinos and Rhode Island slot parlors. That leaves about $2 billion in unmet gaming demand, with much of it concentrated within the Commonwealth. And that doesn’t count the estimated $300–$500 million more in non-gaming spending that will be generated by the resort casinos.

That’s why three resort casinos in Massachusetts will return the Commonwealth to its rightful role as New England’s gaming, entertainment and tourism leader. And with that fiscal and economic resurgence will be more than $400 million annually in new tax revenue for our state and cities and towns, thousands of construction jobs, about 10,000 resort casino jobs, more than $400 million in new annual spending by the resort casinos among our state’s small and medium-sized businesses, and unprecedented tourism and convention and meeting growth from Cape Cod to the Berkshires.

 

Myth #2

Myth:
Massachusetts resort casinos will hurt the state lottery.

Reality:
Connecticut resort casinos have been operating since 1992 and 1996. During that time, Connecticut state lottery has experienced sales growth for 13 of the past 18 fiscal years.

Connecticut lottery sales growth has been fueled by the millions of out-of-state visitors annually patronizing Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun—including about 8 million visits made annually by Massachusetts residents to southeastern Connecticut’s resort casinos.

Bay State visitations to that region have also spilled over into southeastern Connecticut’s non-casino economy as well—through hotel stays, restaurant visits, and retail purchases. And, for the past 18 years, each and every one of those tourism, hospitality and retail purchases made by Bay Staters at the casinos and throughout southeastern Massachusetts has come at the direct expense of Massachusetts’ fiscal and economic health.

Combined with their eager consumption of Connecticut state lottery products, Massachusetts spending has generated millions of dollars in local aid annually to cities and towns throughout Connecticut. That’s new, dependable, additional local aid that can—and will—be going to Massachusetts 351 cities and towns if the Governor and the Legislature authorize resort casinos in the Commonwealth!

 

Myth #3

Myth:
Massachusetts resort casinos will hurt local businesses.

Reality:
When Foxwoods first loomed in 1992, Connecticut’s chambers of commerce, tourism groups, hotel and restaurant owners, and the entire business community opposed the state’s first resort casino. They claimed that the casino would cannibalize local businesses, empty hotels, shutter restaurants, and put people out of work. Gloom and doom was knocking at the door, they said. An economic Armageddon loomed.

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Except, it wasn’t true then in Connecticut...and it isn’t true now in Massachusetts.

Small business growth in southeastern Connecticut has been a boon to that region and to the entire state of Connecticut for the past 18 years. It’s the reason why Connecticut’s local, regional and state chambers of commerce, tourism and other business groups are, today, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun’s most ardent cheerleaders and supporters.

In fact, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun spend over $900 million annually for goods and services necessary to their daily operations, and about 90 percent of the expenditures—$630 million—are spent among Connecticut businesses, creating Connecticut tax revenues, Connecticut jobs and Connecticut small business growth.

Existing businesses expanded. New businesses opened their doors. Hotel and restaurants were packed. Business sales skyrocketed. The region began to challenge Massachusetts for dominance within the convention and meeting market. And southeastern Connecticut enjoyed the dual titles of the state’s premier tourism, hospitality and convention and meeting destination, boasting the state’s lowest unemployment rate.

Connecticut business leaders will tell you that even in the throes of an economic recession, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun have become even more critical to the region and state’s fiscal and economic health.

Connecticut’s two resort casinos alone generate about $400 million a year in tax revenues to state and local governments, employ over 19,000 workers, spend more than $600 million a year among Connecticut businesses, are responsible for indirectly creating another 7,000 jobs within the state’s small business sector, lure nearly 24 million people annually, many who stay in the region’s non-casino hotels, dine in the region’s non-casino restaurants, and visit the region’s non-casino tourism and retail outlets.

So what's that all mean for Massachusetts?

Well, we can keep exporting our tax revenues, jobs and tourism and hospitality growth to the Connecticut and Rhode Island economies, or we can ignore the naysayers and believe our own eyes.

Three Massachusetts resort casinos will empower Massachusetts’ fiscal and economic health by spending more than $400 million annually among the state’s small and medium-sized businesses, generating more than $400 million in new tax revenues, create thousands of construction jobs and about 10,000 resort casinos jobs, and generate several thousand new jobs within the state’s tourism and hospitality sectors.

 

Myth #4

Myth:
Massachusetts resort casinos will increase crime.

Reality:
Tell that to the 80,000 people a day who visit Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, or the 25,000 a day who visit Rhode Island's slot parlors.

Connecticut's resort casinos and Rhode Island's slot parlors have state police, hundreds of security personnel and thousands of surveillance cameras within the facilities and throughout the properties.

Each day, cars and busloads of residents from throughout Massachusetts visit Foxwoods, Mohegan Sun, Twin River and Newport. In fact, many senior citizen groups, non-profits like the Knights of Columbus, the Elks, the VFW and American Legion, regularly take weekly and monthly excursions to the Connecticut casinos and Rhode Island slot parlors. And that doesn't count the scores of Massachusetts companies, trade groups and associations that regularly hold their conventions and meetings at Connecticut's resort casinos.

Ask those Bay Staters residents and businesses visiting southern New England's resort casinos and slot parlors if crime is a cause for concern. After 18 years of Massachusetts residents spending more than $11 billion, and generating more than $4 billion in tax revenues for Connecticut and Rhode Island state governments, Massachusetts residents will likely keep going in the same numbers if we don't capture that economic activity here.

 

Myth #5

Myth:
Massachusetts resort casinos will cause gaming addiction.

Reality:
Massachusetts resort casinos will generate the revenues necessary to provide aggressive problem gaming prevention and treatment programs in the Commonwealth.

That’s because of the estimated 1–2 percent of Bay State residents who suffer from problem gambling are already purchasing Massachusetts State Lottery products, playing keno in their neighborhood stores, or visiting the Connecticut casinos and Rhode Island slot parlors. But they do so without the benefit of an industry-financed funding source for an aggressive prevention and treatment program here at home in the Commonwealth.

We can close our eyes and pretend that the problem doesn’t exist already for about 1–2 percent of the gambling public, or we can do something about it by using Massachusetts resort casinos and the hundreds of millions of dollars in new annual tax revenues that they will generate to fund the nation’s most intensive, aggressive and successful prevention and treatment program for problem gambling.

Massachusetts residents spend about $1 billion a year at the Connecticut resort casinos and Rhode Island slot parlors, and those Massachusetts dollars don’t just buttress Connecticut and Rhode Island’s fiscal and economic health, they also serve to fund Connecticut and Rhode Island’s aggressive—and nationally-recognized problem gambling prevention and treatment programs.

In fact, Connecticut or Rhode Island’s prevention and treatment experts acknowledge that Massachusetts patrons’ spending at the Connecticut casinos and Rhode Island slot parlors plays a major role in funding Connecticut and Rhode Island’s prevention and treatment programs.

After 18 years of Massachusetts residents helping to fund our southern New England neighbors successful prevention and treatment programs, it’s time we use the revenues from three Massachusetts resort casinos to do the same here at home in the Commonwealth.

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Massachusetts State Troopers at Parade used through Creative Commons.