Wampanoags' bad gamble

The Old Indian Meeting House, in Mashpee, built in 1684 and the oldest church on Cape Cod as well as the oldest Native American church in the eastern U.S.

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

The U.S. Interior Department has rescinded the reservation status of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, which has been seeking permission to build a casino on  land it owns in Taunton. The Cape Cod-based tribe itself will be allowed to keep federal recognition as a Native American tribe but the federal action presumably kills the plan for a casino.

The casino business is inherently sleazy and casinos (which aren’t open now because of you-know-what) are cannibalizing themselves. Far better to create a  highly diversified long-term economic development plan, but gambling revenues continue to look alluring as a quick fix.

The fewer casinos the better. But I still feel sorry for the tribe, especially knowing that their casinos would have competed with Twin River’s two nearby casinos, in Lincoln and Tiverton, R.I. Twin River has close connections with the Trump administration, ruled by a former and failed Atlantic City casino mogul. Surely politics had nothing to do with the decision…..?

Maybe go into another business?

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

‘Maybe the owners of the gigantic and mega-glitzy Encore Boston Harbor casino, in the formerly industrial city of Everett, should get out of the saturated southern New England casino racket and stick to the bus and boat business. Instead of the originally projected $1 billion revenue for 2019, Encore appears headed for only $600 million. They must be praying there won’t be any big snow and ice storms between now and the end of the year. I wonder what will happen in the next recession. Maybe it will be good for casinos because suckers will become that much more desperate for a quick killing.

To drum up its business by waving the banners of bonanzas to cure their customers’ financial anxieties, Encore is now offering free parking, free bus trips to the palace on the Mystic River waterfront and very cheap boat travel. Its boat service is heartening – the more commuter boats the better on Boston Harbor.

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With the long and confusing war between IGT and Twin River over the Rhode Island gambling business, one almost wants the state to get rid of these middlemen and go directly into the casino business itself, sort of like the liquor stores owned and operated by some states. Reduce the layers of corruption and cut operating costs!

Casino cannibalization?

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

The casino mania continues apace, with the latest scheme being a proposal to build a slots palace, and, incredibly, horse track, in Wareham, near the Bourne Bridge, the western road access to Cape Cod. If you think Cape traffic is bad now…. (I used to love horse tracks but not so much now that I know more about how some of the animals are treated.)

But wait! There’s more! A Chicago developer called Neil Bluhm continues to push for a casino in poor old Brockton, once “The Shoe Capital of the World’’; the Mashpee Wampanoag Indians still want to put up a casino in Taunton, once “The Silver City,’’ and the Aquinnah Wampanoag Indians continue to demand a gambling joint on Martha’s Vineyard near the famously colorful clay cliffs called Gay Head.

As our region continues to move toward casino cannibalization it looks like IGT, the gambling systems tech company, is a better, well, bet for Rhode Island than Twin River, more of whose suckers may decide to take their chances at the other nearby casinos to pop up. Of course, that’s already happening at the huge and glitzy Encore mega casino in the traditionally poor and gritty inner Boston suburb of Everett. Encore seems to have an especially potent allure for high rollers at its table games, and there are plenty of rich people in the region.

Still, I think a lot of the folks from southeastern New England flocking to Encore right now are going there mostly out of curiosity. When that fades, and winter weather arrives, making travel to Greater Boston even more unpleasant than it is now, I think that will fade a bit, even with such come-ons as the luxury bus service between Gillette Stadium and Encore.

Anyway, IGT, as an international tech company serving a wide customer base, would seem a sturdier reed for Rhode Island to lean on for economic development than one casino company – that is, if IGT actually stays in the Ocean State! Corporate promises about staying in localities and states that have offered companies assorted incentives such as tax breaks tend to evaporate remarkably often.

Meanwhile, we’ll see what the effects of online sports betting on casinos turn out to be….

Government as croupier

The Twin River site used to be this racetrack, also based on gambling

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

In other addiction-promotion industry matters, there’s Trump’s intervention to try to stop a casino from being built in southeastern Massachusetts – a project long sought by the Mashpee Wampanoag Indians. Trump was trying to help limit competition for the Twin River Casino Management Group, which owns casinos in Lincoln and Tiverton, R.I.

Trump was doing a favor for Twin River lobbyist Matthew Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, the husband of White House strategic communications director Mercedes Schlapp and a longtime Trump ally.

But then, all casino operations are, to a lesser or greater extent, heavily politicized because these cash machines are licensed, regulated and taxed by government. Of course, Trump himself was a failed casino operator in the famously corrupt city of Atlantic City, N.J. Casinos have tended over the years to be excellent sources of bribes to public officials.

By encouraging smoking and heavy drinking in casinos, which tend to fuel increased betting, they also hurt public health. Yes, it’s a legal business, but why should government be promoting these things?