A History Lesson
Posted: April 8, 2008
Would you believe the “objective” findings of a scientist who would say of the subject he is researching, “It’s all about addicting new gamblers who will lose everything they have…”? That’s exactly what John Kindt said about casinos in a recent edition of the Akron Beacon Journal.
Kindt has become the patron saint of the anti-gaming movement. His statistics on the “social costs” of casinos are repeated loudly and often. However, how can a person, who from day one has been so virulently anti-gambling, be trusted to develop honest information? He can’t.
Kindt’s social cost assertions are based on statistics he developed claiming that for every dollar generated by casinos the cost to society is three dollars. Casino opponents use that statistic as if it were handed down from on high. Were it true, it would be a devastating indictment of casino expansion. But is it? Judge for yourself.
The first citation we have found for Kindt’s assertion was in an article in the Arkansas Law Review Journal in 1994, when the commercial casino industry was still in its infancy. Only two states, Nevada and Atlantic City, could have been considered mature casino markets with enough data for researchers to produce any relevant analysis of casinos’ impact on communities across the country. Of the seven other states with commercial casinos, only one had introduced casinos more than three years before the article was published and most had opened casinos a year or two before.
How could Kindt draw any valid conclusion about the national impact of casinos when the vast majority of casinos had been operating in new communities for less than five years? He couldn’t.
How could his statistics be valid now – 14 years later, with 40 states now offering casino entertainment? They wouldn’t. This expansion renders Kindt’s figures completely irrelevant.
And yet, Kindt’s claim that costs outweigh the benefits remains in circulation. This stretches the bounds of credulity, but groups and individuals, both anti-casino and impartial, continue to cite it without reading the research for themselves.
Meanwhile, third-party, independent research (see The Regional Economic Impacts of Casino Gambling: Assessment of the Literature and Establishment of a Research Agenda) conducted since Kindt’s Arkansas Law Review article demonstrate that casinos are an economic benefit for their host communities.
Studies done more recently than 1994 in communities with a long history with casinos show Kindt’s social costs statistics are simply wrong. (see Survey Respondents Share Opinions of Riverboat Casinos in their Communities and The Effect of Casino Gambling on Crime and Quality of Life in New Casino Jurisdictions)
But, we all know what they say about statistics, so rather than read the research, read what the people who actually live in casino communities believe:
- “Despite all the talk of increased crime and social costs, most of the communities reported no rise in murders, theft and other major crimes,” this from a series on gaming in the Wichita Eagle (July 15-19, 2007). Eagle reporters interviewed people in casino communities such as, St. Louis, St. Charles and East St. Louis, MO; Alton, IL; Altoona, IA; and the Quad Cities of Davenport and Bettendorf, IA and Moline and Rock Island, IL.
- “Taking everything into consideration, these public officials strongly endorse the decision to allow gaming in their communities,” according to a September 2005 survey of community leaders in gaming jurisdictions by Peter D. Hart Research and Associates. Those surveyed cited the benefits that came with the introduction of casinos as additional tax revenues, jobs, secondary economic development and contributions to community and charitable organizations.
- "It's been substantially more positive than negative – and don't forget the jobs. They have provided large numbers of jobs with benefits in a whole range of salaries," Larry Marantette, an economic development consultant for Detroit, told the Detroit Free Press (Sept. 30, 2007).
After reading these first-hand accounts, it’s pretty difficult – no, impossible – to honestly believe Mr. Kindt’s statistics. People interested in the issues surrounding casinos would be well-served to do a little digging for themselves.
