QUICK FACTS

Costs to the Lottery
Reduced local aid:  According to a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce report commissioned in March 2008, if the lottery takes a 10% hit from the introduction of casinos and slots, as it is expected to do, state lottery transferred as state aid to towns and cities will be reduced by about $90 million. Massachusetts cannot afford this hit to the Lottery.

Costs to Individuals and Families
Money is siphoned from the local economy:  Based on an analysis of average daily profits at Foxwoods in 2007, for the state to collect $200 million in tax revenue, 40,000 people would have to lose $234 every day, 365 days a year. Massachusetts residents cannot afford to spend $234 each day on top of all the money already spent on the most productive Lottery in the country.

Costs to City and Town Budgets
Expensive impact to host regions and municipal budgets:  Infrastructure, traffic, environment, housing, public safety, education, water and sewage, have been identified by four regional groups (western, central. metro-Boston, and the southeastern region) of planners and local officials as extraordinary costs that will occur with slot parlors and casinos that local taxpayers should not subsidize. Massachusetts towns cannot afford to underwrite the casino trade.

Costs to Local Economy
Hurts the local economies:  According to a New England Public Policy Center report in 2006, 85% of patrons live locally. When money is spent at slots and is not spent on movies, local restaurants, appliances, and home improvement, it leaves the local economy. The Boston Business Journal wrote that the claim that casinos will create 20,000 new jobs "is bogus because the diversion of billions of dollars in one sector is destined to cause job losses in other sectors." Massachusetts businesses cannot afford to lose more revenue in this economy.

Costs to Taxpayers
Taxpayers subsidize the industry that doesn't pay for itself:  California taxpayers subsidized the gambling industry paying for a $1 billion dollars per year of social costs related to slots/casino gambling. Australian taxpayers subsidized the gambling industry paying $4.5 billion dollars of social costs related to slots/casino gambling per year. The Massachusetts Budget cannot afford to subsidize an industry that doesn't pay for its costs.

Costs to Law Enforcement
Expenses of Economic Crime Bill have not been calculated.   Attorney General Martha Coakley has warned the Legislature we do not have the legal framework and capacity to deal with the money laundering, gang and organized crime that will occur with legalizing slots and casinos. There is no funding earmarked for the equipment, surveillance, personnel, judicial and corrections budgets. Massachusetts law enforcement cannot afford this additional burden.

The casino industry has addiction down to a science.
The casino industry has whole teams of workers who study problem gamblers and the science of addiction to learn how exactly they can best market their products to the people most likely to become addicted.¹

Casinos make up to 90% of their profits from 10% of the players²
Slot machines take credit cards, not coins, and are designed so players can make hundreds of bets per minute - giving players a buzz similar to cocaine.³ Quite simply, if people were not addicted to their product, casinos would not be profitable.

The goal of slot machines is to get gamblers to play longer, faster, more intensively and to "play to extinction"
Everything, from the sounds the machines make to the timing and frequency of payoffs, are all carefully designed to maximize the amount of time people sit at a machine, encouraging players to spend until they have nothing left.⁴

Predatory slots are not like interactive, social gambling games like bingo, Friday night poker games, or office sports pools
The state sponsors more than enough regressive gambling with the Lottery

Casinos aggressively market to problem gamblers
They collect extensive information about their most frequent customers, and use statistical models to predict when targeted customers will gamble and how much they will spend -and base their marketing accordingly.⁵ In Illinois, a casino was fined $800,000 for marketing to problem gamblers who had voluntarily banned themselves from entering a casino by placing themselves on a self-exclusion list.⁶

Slot machines are highly addictive, much more addictive than any other form of gambling
Today's predatory slots are meticulously designed computers, generating precise profits, deliberately creating a false sense of near wins and regular small payoffs that create an illusion of sporting chance.

Casinos will hurt local restaurants, hotels and entertainment businesses.
Money that would otherwise be spent at locally-owned small businesses will instead be dumped down predatory slot machines owned by out-of-state corporations. Massachusetts dollars are shipped far away to wealthy owners and investors, and little of that money is being reinvested in the local community.

Casinos and slots won't help locally-owned tourism businesses
Casinos will divert tourists and residents away from local historic, cultural, and natural attractions from Cape Cod to the Berkshires, hurting businesses that rely on those visitors. To the extent that people do travel to Massachusetts for a resort-style casino, they'll stay at a casino hotel, eat at casino restaurants, and go to casino-sponsored entertainment events. Casinos drain money from the local economy.

When discretionary income is spent on gambling, local businesses suffer
Consumers have less money to spend on clothing, electronics, furniture, automobiles, or any other locally sold product. A study on the costs and benefits of casinos found that for every $1000 in increased casino revenue, businesses up to 30 miles away lost $243.⁷

Job growth in the casino industry will lead to job cuts elsewhere
As the Boston Business Journal notes, the claim that casinos will create 20,000 new jobs "is bogus because the diversion of billions of dollars into one sector is destined to cause job losses in other sectors".⁸

Expanded gambling hurts worker productivity
Local businesses can anticipate increased personnel costs due to increased job absenteeism and declining productivity of workers.⁹

Expanding gambling is not an effective economic development strategy
It drains money from local economies, hurting local businesses. As the Wall Street Journal notes, "a growing body of research and experience suggests the odds are not stacked in the state's favor"¹⁰ when it comes to economic development. There are better strategies for creating jobs and promoting economic growth in the Commonwealth that don't come with the significant down sides that casinos bring.

The Costs of Crime
When casinos come to town, crime goes up. Crime, including embezzlement, robbery, DUIs,aggravated assaults and domestic violence rates, increases 8 -10% right after casino is built, and continues to increase after that -- and local communities have to pick up the tab.¹⁶ Local governments also bear the costs of significant increases in emergency service calls and casino-related traffic problems requiring police oversight.¹⁷

The Costs of Regulation
Hundreds of government employees will be necessary to ensure compliance with regulations regarding money laundering, wiretapping and loan sharking.¹⁹

The Costs of Problem Gambling
Problem gamblers are expensive. Due to the predatory, addictive nature of the new slots, Massachusetts can expect a 50% increase in the number of problem gamblers in Massachusetts if we expanded gambling in the state.²⁰ According to the California Attorney General's office, problem and pathological gamblers cost California $1 billion per year,²¹ while officials in Indiana, after an exhaustive review, estimated the cost of serving each problem gambler at $2,500 per year²². This would add up to well over $750 million in costs for Massachusetts.²³ Even half of that number would be an enormous fiscal burden to add to the already dwindling appropriations for the Commonwealth's mental health and substance abuse services.

The Costs of Missed Opportunities
There are more effective ways we could be spending our money. Top economists, including a Nobel Prize winner²⁴, agree -- money spent in casinos does not have nearly as much of a positive effect on the rest of the economy as spending and investment in other industries. That's why the most pro-businesses papers, including the Boston Business Journal and the Wall Street Journal, oppose casinos.