US (IN) - Casinos make, cost lots: What Others Say
Casinos make, cost lots: What Others Say
From a Tuesday editorial in the Indianapolis Star: A new study shows that taxes from riverboat casinos have proven to be highly profitable for state government in Indiana. No surprise there.
Casinos, according to a study commissioned by the General Assembly, also are driving up the crime rate, at an estimated cost of $52 million a year. Again, that’s no real surprise.
Hoosiers have been willing to accept the tradeoff between increased crime and the more than $750 million in tax revenues that the riverboats generate. Yet a third area probed by the study - and the most disturbing - defies an easy cost-benefit analysis.
The study, conducted by Indianapolis-based Policy Analytics LLC, found that Indiana’s casinos have helped create more than 18,500 problem or pathological gamblers in the state. The social costs of gambling - such as lost productivity and counseling - are estimated at $42 million a year.
But how do you measure the cost of the emotional damage that problem gamblers inflict on their children and spouses? What’s the price tag on a busted marriage? On a child who loses trust in and the support of a parent? What is the true cost of an addiction? In embracing gambling, Hoosiers are accepting a harsh bargain: We’ll look past the thousands of ruined lives and broken families as long as the money is good.
Indiana last year had the nation’s fourth-highest revenue from casinos — behind only Nevada, New Jersey and Mississippi. The state needs to explore in-depth the consequences of gambling and help Hoosiers understand exactly what we’ve gotten ourselves into.
The Cincinatti Enquirer http://news.enquirer.com
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060308/EDIT02/603080318/-1/rss
