Never a shortage of suckers

Adapted from  an item in Robert Whitcomb's Oct. 27  "Digital Diary,'' in GoLocal24.com.

And so the casino cannibalization will continue in New England, as Connecticut officials will probably put one or two small casinos in the northern Nutmeg State to reduce the loss of revenue to Massachusetts when the MGM Resorts International casino opens in poor old Springfield. The Connecticut officials worry about the losses to the two Indian casinos in eastern Connecticut  caused by incoming eastern Massachusetts casinos and a proposed second Rhode Island casino, in Tiverton.

The idea, of course, in all this is to avoid having to get public revenue honestly by imposing and when necessary raising taxes. It’s far easier to get a slice of a casino’s take, much of which comes from low-and-moderate-income people and much of which goes out of the region to distant owners even as it drains money from local business and increases bankruptcies and crime (especially embezzlement).

Casinos are bogus economic development, but as the tele-evangelists and P.T. Barnum knew well, you can always bet on a surplus of suckers. Let the public get what it wants, good and hard.

-- Robert Whitcomb