New Casinos Would Be a Big Win for Florida, Taxpayers
By Ron Sachs
There is one surprising new certainty clearly emerging on Florida’s horizon: Casino gambling is coming to our Sunshine State to stay.
The near future will soon welcome casinos into Florida, enthusiastically, because the real benefits will win over taxpayers/voters, public officials and even many former opponents. The reasoning is simple math: more tourists, higher-paying jobs, and increased funding for public education and a range of other needs.
Few states need that kind of new and sustained boost more than Florida, especially now, in the worst economy of our lifetimes.
The Stakes Are High
With unemployment approaching 12 percent, new construction at a standstill and tourism numbers stagnant, Florida could expect a vibrant casino industry and its related positive activities to trigger a surge in healthy growth and building activity. That would in turn bring additional revenues to cash-strapped cities and counties now struggling to keep police and firefighters on the street and teachers in the classrooms.
For every board foot of lumber, ton of concrete and yard of wire sold, the state would collect its share of the revenue as well. That means the benefits of casinos would be felt well beyond the communities where they would actually operate.
Here, the gaming industry offers a “trifecta” win for Florida. Casinos would lure more tourists to the state, create new jobs and provide higher wages and benefits than other visitor-driven industries.
Casinos could provide good jobs and the training to prepare our workforce for them. For example, the average blackjack-dealer job is worth about $44,000 annually, including bonuses and benefits. There are thousands of other jobs likely to be created, maintained or deepened in the direct and indirect services and products sectors that would flourish by doing business with casinos and their related enterprises.
Florida hotel, restaurant and business owners are growing tired of losing customers to competing destinations that feature casinos.
Opposition is Fading
Predictably, any attempt to introduce casinos to Florida will meet with vocal opposition.
Arguments that legal gambling would detract from Florida’s deserved reputation as a globally great place for family vacations are just plain hypocritical. Who operates a bigger gaming operation in Florida than our state government and the long-established Florida Lottery?
We already are a big gaming state – but without the big benefit to taxpayers. So, to increase our economic opportunity requires facing that reality unabashedly.
Some opposition comes from – and is funded by – pari-mutuel operations that fear casinos will siphon off their gambling customers. Just look at the tax breaks the pari-mutuels are begging state lawmakers to enact now for the very survival of dog and horse tracks or jai alai frontons and it’s easy to observe that this business model no longer singularly entertains and attracts people in the 21st century.
Faltering pari-mutuel businesses can be boosted and saved by allowing slot machines and other forms of gaming. In fact, a Pennsylvania study found that slot machine revenues from horse tracks increased on race days. That suggests people still enjoy pari-mutuel activities, but that they also appreciate a variety of choices.
Strict enforcement, meticulous oversight and new technology have combined to make casinos among the most well-regulated businesses in the world. As a result, gaming facilities nowadays are more likely to attract grandmothers than “godfathers.”
Modern patrons have higher average incomes, spend more money and expect more in the way of entertainment and amenities. In short, casino patrons are exactly the type of high-value visitors most states aim to attract. Florida needs them, too.
Let’s also keep in mind that tourists who already love Florida – and even millions who have not yet visited – would have additional magnets to attract them. Their voluntary expenditure of money in Florida would not be limited to casinos. Indeed, our restaurants, retail outlets, rental cars, family attractions and other key good and services providers would find a new, broader customer base, thanks to casino traffic.
Given a choice between the sandy deserts of Vegas, the slim pickings of Biloxi, or the limited thrills of Atlantic City, Florida would quickly establish itself as the destination of choice for visitors for whom gaming is an additional draw to the sun, sand and surf of the state with the longest coastline in the nation.
Most gaming opponents will argue that casinos impose additional costs related to increased property and street crime. But, a 2003 study of community crime rates before and after casinos found no consistent correlation between the presence of gaming facilities and increased crime rates.
The truth is that a number of factors influence crime rates. And clearly casinos can provide the revenue communities need to keep police on the streets and criminals behind bars.
When all else fails, opponents of casino gaming sometimes reach for their ace-in-the-hole: the time-worn argument that people can become addicted to gambling and lose their homes and families. Well, the gaming industry wants return customers, not bankrupt ones. And, no one does more to prevent gambling addiction – or to help and guide those afflicted with it to help – than the gaming industry.
The Chances Are Good
Modern history reflects overwhelming statewide votes against casinos in 1978, 1986 and 1994 as proof that Floridians don’t want casinos. This historical footnote is somewhat meaningless today because it overlooks that the whole world has changed – and Florida’s economic world surely has changed for the worse.
The most noticeable change is the presence of actual slot machines in the state. In referendums handily passed in recent years, Floridians voted to make them legal in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, and the Seminole Indian Tribe operates slots on its reservations. Now, the Seminoles are still hoping to reach an agreement with Gov. Charlie Crist and the Florida Legislature to authorize other gaming in casinos on those lands.
Florida voters are taking note of these changes. And while state and local governments are forced to make drastic cuts in our schools and health-care programs, increasing numbers of them are questioning our state’s antiquated prohibition on casinos. More and more think Florida should stop avoiding the game and take a seat at the table.
After all, the only real gamble is continuing to ignore the benefits casinos can bring to Florida. In 2010, bet on casinos coming to Florida sooner than later.
Ron Sachs is former senior communications counsel to former Florida Govs. Reubin Askew and Lawton Chiles, both of whom actively opposed pro-casino gambling amendments to Florida’s Constitution. Sachs is CEO of media consulting company Ron Sachs Communications, with offices in Tallahassee and Orlando.
So we want return customers (addicts), just not bankrupt return customers? So we recognize there will be more crime with state-sponsored gambling, but we will also have more money to hire cops to arrest them, build more prisons to house them when convicted? Seems that this is not the kind of growth industry Floridians should be excited about.