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.