Casinos Essay, Research Paper

Casinos

Casinos have become a large part of cities’ economy and hundreds of

thousands of people’s lives. Casinos are exciting for many people who feel they

have a chance to win it big. Because so much money is flowing into casinos, the

local business are being affected. Most are not thriving with the new tourism

and the seemingly revived economy. In 1994 more people made the trip to a casino

then to a ball park (Popkin). The casinos are attracting so much of American’s

dollars that they spent less on books, music albums and attractions (Reed).

The people are spending less money outside of the casino. Which is not

helping the vast majority of local businesses. This is what is most often

overlooked by the city. The money from tourists and the community is not going

into the local businesses, but instead the casino. Robert Goodman, Urban

Planning professor states: ?Newly opened casinos suck money out of the local

economy, away from existing movie theaters, car dealerships, clothing shops and

sports arenas? (Popkin). Casinos take money away from existing businesses. In

Atlantic City, where casinos were supposed to save their failing economy, over

900 of their 2,100 small businesses have closed and the number of restaurants

was reduced from 243 to 146. By providing everything a person needs, the

casinos are designed to keep people inside. The truth is casinos drain money

out of an area into a far away bank account, most often never going back into

the community. Casino revenues may look good on paper to the average person, and

to politicians who are constantly being pushed to gain more revenue. In reality

they are almost a nightmare to the small locally owned businesses. Jobs are one

of the main reasons for the growth of casinos.

Across the continent casinos have created tens of thousands of jobs for

unemployed people (Clines). Indian casinos in Minnesota have created

approximately 5,000 jobs. Between 1975 and 1992 employment in Atlantic City’s

service industry grew 608 percent, a significant part of this came from casinos

which created 95 percent of the new jobs. The casinos increased construction

jobs ninety three percent, and created 600 new transportation jobs (Reed). Over

all casinos provide many new jobs for an area. Construction jobs decline when

the casino is completed. The jobs will decline as demand for their services

drops off. During the same time period of 1975 to 1992 manufacturing jobs were

down eighty-four percent. Real estate, insurance, and financial employment fell

forty one percent (Reed). While some jobs increased others declined because of

the shift of demand for certain jobs. Casinos may help some jobs but harm

others.

Even with casinos Atlantic City has the highest unemployment in New

Jersey. A reason for this is that the casino jobs went to people who moved in

from out of state, not to the people the casino was built to help (Reed).

Casinos create many new jobs and opportunities for the people around the area.

If the jobs are supposed to be there to help the state’s unemployment, the state

government should do a better job of giving the jobs to people in the state.

The jobs do not help the state’s unemployment if they hire workers from out of

state. This defeats one of the main reasons for building a casino. This is

having a visible economic impact on different people.