Will NH Casinos Stop Revenue Flow to Mass?

Casino shills make two major claims:

• New Hampshire can lure Massachusetts residents to a casino here;
• A casino here will stop many New Hampshire residents from gambling at Massachusetts and Connecticut casinos. 

Both these claims have been soundly trashed-- by a new study by The Center for Policy Analysis at UMass Dartmouth in its latest annual New England Casino Gaming Update. For those casino advocates doubting this source, it is Clyde Barrow, who heads the Center and advocates for casino developers, including for the proposed Hudson, NH casino.

Key findings (see charts below):

• Overwhelmingly, Maine's Hollywood Slots casino has failed to attract out of state gamblers, with 96 percent of gamblers there living in Maine. This number has held steady for seven years running.
• One percent of Hollywood Slots gamblers (1%) live in neighboring Massachusetts. Even during a brief two-year novelty phase, only 3.6 percent of Maine casino gamblers lived in Massachusetts. In 2011, Massachusetts residents spent a paltry $577,000 at Maine's casino, generating only $286,000 in state and local tax revenues.
• The Maine casino completely FAILED to halt the flow of Maine gambler money to Connecticut casinos. In 2004, the year before Hollywood Slots opened, Maine residents spent $33 million at the Connecticut casinos, $34 million in 2011.

Source/Notes:

UMass Dartmouth annual New England gaming reports 2005-2012 for calendar years 2004-2011.

* 2006 is Hollywood Slots first full year operation (opened 11/4/2005).

** Hollywood Slots opened a larger casino and increased slots from 476 to 1,000 in summer, 2008.

Massachusetts will soon have four big, flashy, destination-style casinos. If our legislature gets snookered into allowing them, New Hampshire casinos (like Maine's) will be plain vanilla, local market casinos which will FAIL like Maine's to attract significant out-of-state gambling money and will FAIL to stop New Hampshire gamblers wanting an amenity-rich casino experience from heading South to Massachusetts and Connecticut.

New Hampshire casinos will social and economic black holes, just like Maine's. They would cannibalize consumer spending and jobs from thousands of existing New Hampshire businesses, charities, and nonprofits, and increase gambling addiction and serious crimes perpetrated against innocent New Hampshire residents.

Once Allowed, Will Slots Proliferate Statewide?

Casino shills keep talking about limited gambling, implying that no casino will be permitted near your town, degrading your quality of life, imposing uncompensated infrastructure, social welfare, and crime costs on your community.

In April, the Maine legislature voted to allow fraternal organizationssuch as the Elks or American Legion to own and operate up to five slot machines. Fortunately, conservative Governor Paul LePage vetoed the measure, with the legislature failing to override.