In a recenT Globe column, I described the emerging success of the Massachusetts Legislature’s strategy to make our destination resort casinos an engine of broad-based economic development. In drafting the Casino Gaming Law, the Legislature and Governor Patrick pioneered another set of strategies — designed to minimize the impacts on infrastructure, as well as on traffic, schools, and on other social and economic variables, such as property values, crime rates, and lottery sales. The Legislature and the governor established criteria and mandates in the Casino Gaming Law — unique in the US gaming industry — to implement their strategies.
The Legislature first mandated that any community considering hosting a casino had the right to negotiate a Host Community Agreement (HCA) with a casino developer, which was designed to, among other things, anticipate and mitigate any projected impacts on transportation but also impacts on schools, housing, and public safety. Further, that HCA had to be approved by a community referendum. Similarly, a casino applicant could not bring a proposal to the Gaming Commission until they negotiated an agreement with each surrounding community to mitigate any and all predictable consequences of the casino development. Over the 15-year terms of casino licenses and the 5-year term of the slots facility license, approximately $1 billion in local taxes and mitigation payments will be designated to alleviate transportation and other impacts of the casinos and to pay for local services at the three host and 19 surrounding communities. In addition, the Legislature established a Community Mitigation Fund, which will operate with $15-20 million annually, to be used by the Gaming Commission to address any other consequences of the casino development and operations that were not anticipated by the community agreements.
No other jurisdiction in the United States has even remotely similar efforts to mitigate the potential negative consequences of casino developments.The Gaming Law also mandates a comprehensive research agenda designed to identify the impact of casinos on any social and economic variable, including crime rates, property values, lottery sales, job starts, unemployment, bankruptcies, and demand for social services. The research team has developed a multi-year database of all of these variables in every community in Massachusetts, as well as a 10,000-sample survey of Massachusetts adults, to set a baseline of gambling habits and attitudes and related behavioral problems. Researchers will be tracking changes in these variables over years, determining whether those changes, good or bad, are due to casinos. This research will inform and empower regulators and legislators to address any issues that Massachusetts communities have not already anticipated. Get in your inbox: Our conservative columnist offers a weekly take on everything from politics to pet peeves.Although we have only one operating casino, Plainridge Park Casino (PPC) in Plainville, which has been open for 21 months, these research projects are already bearing fruit. Researchers, working closely with the police departments of Plainville and its surrounding communities, determined that after the first 12 months of operation at PPC, there has been no discernible impact on crime rates. They noted that there has been a measurable increase in traffic incidents, but those traffic incidents are commensurate with any development of comparable size. They also noted an increase in credit card fraud in a couple of nearby communities. While local police chiefs do not believe this is related to the casinos, our researchers have not ruled it out. Similarly, working closely with the lottery, researchers have determined that there has been no discernible impact of the casino on overall lottery sales in the area.
Destination casinos are a catalyst for development They are fulfilling their promise of broad-based economic development.So far so good.
As a final effort to mitigate any negative consequences of the casinos, the Casino Law establishes a Public Health Trust Fund that — when all of the casinos open — will operate with $15-20 million a year to support the research agenda and robust public health strategies to promote responsible gaming and combat problem gaming. The fund is administered by a unique partnership between the Department of Public Health and the Mass Gaming Commission.
Understanding the long-term impacts, negative or positive, of casinos on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will take many years. But the Legislature made a powerful commitment to acknowledging the possibility of unintended impacts by addressing them with candor, research data, and the resources to mitigate almost any eventuality. The people of Massachusetts voted with a 60 percent majority to maintain the Casino Law in Massachusetts. The law ensures that both the 60 percent who supported it and the 40 percent who opposed it have the benefit of the most comprehensive efforts to maximize the good and minimize the bad of any law in the country. Stephen P. Crosby is chair of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission and was previously dean of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at UMass Boston.| < Prev | Next > |
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