“Once a gaming debate begins, it does not end until there is success for the gaming industry. It may take two years. It may take 20 years, as it did in Pennsylvania. But eventually the economic and marketing forces will prevail.”
--Joseph Weinert, Spectrum Gaming Group, quoted by Ned Barnett
Barnett was editorializing in the News and Observer that it was a good thing that commercial, non-Indian-run casino gambling did not make it into Phil Berger's state budget. Good. But get ready, Barnett warned, 'cause the whole push will return -- Berger has too much at stake to just give up, there's money flying, and the prediction of Mr. Weinert quoted above does resemble our inevitability.
When it does arrive, in two years or 20, it will put plenty of money in certain pockets, pay minimum to the low level staff who actually make these places run, and further corrupt our already remarkably corrupt politics. “As commercial casinos and other gambling options have become more widespread, their ability to spur regional economic development has become more limited.” The thousands of jobs that Berger-Moore forecast as a casino benefit are just helium balloons.
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