The polling firm’s survey of 500 registered voters in Kansas showed that when voters were initially asked if they wanted to allow state-operated casino gambling, 46 percent supported it, 39 percent opposed it and 15 percent were undecided, McFerron said.
However, when respondents were told that Kansas is losing millions of dollars to casinos in Missouri and Oklahoma, expanded gambling in Kansas received more support, he said.
“Once you tell them money is going out of state, it changed 56 to 31 (in support),” McFerron said.
The article also has an illustration which may well be the worst piece of chartjunk I've seen in eons:
The entire image barely conveys two numbers, since "Yes" + "No" will be close to 1.
I have no opinion on the wisdom of allowing a casino in southeastern Kansas. I don't see the harm, but I don't see why this has become the magic bullet that will save the Kansas economy. I guess that casinos on reservations in Kansas are doing nicely, and I don't see why the state should deny itself the power to tax and regulate casinos if they are going to be built in the state anyway. I don't, however, think that it's a better or worse idea just because the money is being spent somewhere anyway.
Furthermore, a "destination casino" in Kansas seems like a bit of a contradiction. If you want to get away and spend a fabulous weekend gambling, is southeastern Kansas what you think of? Really?
If it is built, the proceeds should be dedicated to promoting some sort of sustainable industry for Kansas. That could well include funding schools, building windmills, buying up water rights, or funding scientific research. Something to guarantee that future generations of Kansans will always have more than casinos.
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You know what the problem is? It's not a matter of losing the casino profits to Missouri and Oklahoma, as that's a bit of a false assertion.
Pretty much all the casinos are owned by major gaming companies located in Nevada. So while they will get the taxes from income earned in their states, the money ultimately ends up enriching people in other states no matter where the casino is located. You get the money from the first pass - the gambling earnings, but all the people being enriched by the casino will always live elsewhere, meanwhile the citizens of your state will be suffering from bad math taxes.
Ah yes, casinos.
Detroit built a few awhile ago, and one of the ideas was that it would stop money from going to Windsor as well as giving Detroit funds to improve the city and entice businesses back. This hasn't happened to any great extent.
What's also funny; most of the players in the casinos appear to be local residents, frittering away their spare (or not spare) change in the hopes of winning big. Not too many tourists come to Detroit to play in the casinos. While I haven't seen the numbers recently, I suspect the casinos are a net loss to the state.
I have no objections to casinos, but maybe they should pay for themselves?
Take a look at places like Galena, Kansas, where the mining industry made buckets of money and then left a dreadful toxic mess for somebody else to clean up. Even after the EPA spent millions of dollars hauling off chat piles (mine tailings) and filling mine shafts, it still looks like a moonscape.
While nearby Picher, Oklahoma is a lost cause (it will be ghost town in ten years), the persistence of the residents of Galena in making their town livable amazes me. They've scraped together money for parks, museums, and schools. I wonder what they could do if they had the millions of dollars of government money that would it take to build a casino? Might that not be more economically efficient than building a casino?
Here are some photos of the more depressing parts of the area that my brother and I took and scanned. http://homepage.mac.com/smccann/PhotoAlbum68.html