News: Voinovich says Ohio will lose if it plays the slots

http://www.pointbuzz.com/news.htm?id=1003

What an incredible bunch of crap.

Ohio (and especially Cleveland, where I'm at) needs casinos so badly it's pathetic, yet we can't get it past the bible-thumpers and the politics of who would make money from it.

That article falls into the latter category.

What an incredible bunch of crap.

Voinavich, and that other azz clown Bob Taft have no clue how to run a state. The Catholic church does not want gambling, as they are afraid it will cut in to their Bingo, and Vegas nights. They donate all kinds of money to Taft's campaigns, so he in turn does whatever they tell him.

If they are so dead set against gambling in Ohio, then I say screw it. If gambling is illegal, cut the lottery, cut horse races... o and cut the Bingo and Vegas nights too.

It is amazing how they can say how casinos are a sin, on one day and come play bingo and black jack to give *US* money the next. I hate hipocrits.
*** Edited 9/1/2006 2:20:13 AM UTC by 1eyedjack***

Yeah, casinos did wonders for Detroit. And Chester, WV, home of Mountaineer, has a weak local economy. Because Mountaineer has everything, local business suffered. The unemployment rate in that county is nearly double the state average. When people say things like "Bible thumpers" or that Catholics just want to keep all the money for bingo, it shows a great lack of understanding of the issue.

The Ohio Lottery was intended to help schools. So what happened? The money from the lottery went to the schools, but the state took away the same amount from school funding. Learn and Earn is a joke. How much sense does it make to take $2 billion from the economy (in the form of citizens dumping that money into a slot machine) to generate $700 million in scholarships? Any guess where the rest goes? As they say, the house always wins.

On some level it's a moral issue, because we all know the targets are those who can't afford it. The casino industry behind the proposal admit themselves that this will generate 110,000 new gambling addicts. But on a much bigger scale, this is just a common sense issue related to basic economics.

*** Edited 9/1/2006 2:52:53 AM UTC by Walt***

The only thing that bothers me about "Learn and Earn" is that the advertisements made NO mention of how this money is made. It made NO mention of casinos. When I looked up online what Learn and Earn is, it all suddenly made sense why the commercials for it was so vague.

I'm all for gambling and casinos. A lot of money leaves Ohio and goes into the pockets of Detroit, Niagra Falls, Windsor, and Chester because of it. If people are so willing to leave the state and spend their money elsewhere, why not keep it in the state economy?

Gambling is not going to fix our problems. There are a bunch of reasons why jobs are leaving Ohio left and right and why people are getting poorer and poorer. Ohio needs to develop a more skilled workforce and keep them in the state. Workers get education cheaply and then leave the state. Ohio needs to make the state more attractive to businesses looking to set up shop. Since Ohio ranks the third highest in taxes* I'm guessing things won't change until taxes come back down. And while I'll be stepping on many toes on this subject, the union workforce needs to change. Unions are great when helping to get a fair wage and safer working conditions. But when the union force is asking too much from a company that they are filing Chapter 11 to keep their doors from shutting down, then there is a problem. Businesses are here to make money, if they won't make it in Ohio, they are going to look somewhere else.

There are many times when I agree with what Republicans in office have to say, but I strongly disagree with Senator Voinovich's sentiment on gambling. People are already leaving Ohio to gamble and I think its at least better to keep that money in our local economy.

~Rob Willi

*Source: http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/336.html

But that's the problem. The money wouldn't stay in the local economy. It would stay in the casino. How many gamblers drive to Windsor to do anything other than dump money into the casino?

The casinos need to employ a workforce, restaurants will need to feed the gamblers, some will need a hotel to stay at.

I'm not a big casino person, but the three times I've been to a casino I've stayed in a hotel and ate at a restaurant in the area. The money that the casinos makes finds its way to a workforce that lives in the area.

Like I said, casinos won't solve our problems, but at least we can keep the money in this area instead of using it to travel elsewhere and spend it.

~Rob Willi

In my mind, if people are gonna gamble, they're gonna gamble, especially if it's so easily acccesible a short drive away like nearly the entire state of Ohio. To me, the moral components of the equation aren't as acute as economic factors.

IMO, casinos here would make a city more of a "destination" and stimulate the areas' economy, even if most of the profits leave the state - I know I too spend tons of money elsewhere when I travel to Detroit and Windsor. Also, I fail to believe that the state couldn't structure the deal with the casinos to be beneficial to the state. The key would be to have the funding augment existing budgets, not replace allocated money as has happened elsewhere.

Bottom line - casinos are not a silver bullet to solving economic problems, just one small component - and a reality of today's world. And they aren't going away any time soon.

I hate those political commercials...especially the one with Blackwell stating that Ohio is the third highest taxed state in the nation. It seems to blow my mind that Ohio has been ruled by a republican for the last 12 years!!!! Every politician blows off questions to attack their oppenent every chance they get. The world is just too geopolitical in this day and age.

Casinos have NEVER solved any city's problems. Period.

1) "Keeping the money in state" First there is a large portion of people who would leave because they like to travel to these casinos. Second most of the stakeholders in this casino bill are groups from out of state, so, all those dollars are headed out anyway. The two casinos in listed on the bill in cleveland are for Forest City (i know) and Jacobs (i think, but i do know that it's for the lland on the west bank flats) so the money stays there. But overwhelmingly money will be pouring out of the state to these big money owners.

2) "people will come in and stay" People will stay at the big comfy hotel attached and owned by the casino and never leave it. Again look at what casinos do for other cities. Like the examples Walt gave. Casinos do not spur other growth, they are built to draw in the people and never let them out. There are people who do make it a travel and visit thing, but find the studies, most do not. They do not want neighbors, they want your money. Besides why would anyone travel to Cleveland to gamble when they can go whereever they want. And there sure are more interesting places to visit and gamble than cleveland. I predict that 80%+ of the gamblers in a cleveland casino would be NE OH residents. Please refer to Point no. 1.

Voinavich has been one of the better governing politicians this state has seen in some time. Sure i don't agree with everything he's been behind. But overall noone can really complain about his time in the Cleveland mayoral office (how often is there a Rep in the Cleveland office anymore?) Again his time in the Ohio governers office was also quite strong. I sure wish that he had revised the state corporate laws, but one can't get anything. Sure Taft is daft, but Voinavich has been an upstanding ohio citizen with a pretty good record.

But like Walt said do the math, we dump all this money into casinos by generally the poorest of the state to fund scolarships?!?!? What the... Why not use that billion to run down the cost of the schools for EVEYONE. And who gets to decide who gets these scolarships? And what are the qualifications for this money? What a freakin' joke. How about this, use that money to lower the income tax? There's a good one. Casinos, and really this proposal, just piss me off. I just ask all of you folks who are blinded by the casino mogals and their lies, give me the city that was saved by casinos?

Voinavich is one of those politicians that makes me sick. Political issues aside (I'm not going to get into the whole Democrat/liberal vs. Republican/conservative debate) it's him as a person that I truly cannot stand. Everything I've heard about how he uses his power and how he treats the "common" he allegedly works for is just downright wrong. I certainly don't pretend that there are very many politicians out there with good intentions, but he has to be one of the worst.
Anyway, sorry for the rant. I'll let everyone return to their regularly scheduled Cedar Point related conversations.

*** Edited 9/3/2006 4:59:33 AM UTC by Ralph Wiggum***

Ohio is so screwed in the first place because we can't seem to get anyone to even run for governor that has a clue. What the state needs is I think a different issue from whether or not it's "moral" to have gambling in the state. Comparing anything to Detroit isn't fair, I don't think, because the state of the auto industry creates a situation that is so unlike anything going on here in Ohio that it's not apples/apples.

About not ever leaving your hotel, come on, have you been to Vegas? Who doesn't leave their hotel? In five nights there in July, I saw three shows and ate at a half-dozen restaurants outside of Caesars Palace.

My feeling is that we aren't out of options for fixing the state economy to try before we start allowing gambling. I'm not opposed to it, but once you allow it, you can't turn back.

1eyedjack said:

If they are so dead set against gambling in Ohio, then I say screw it. If gambling is illegal, cut the lottery, cut horse races... o and cut the Bingo and Vegas nights too.

Very true, as an out-of-state visitor to Cedar Point, I was shocked to find that the evils of the lottery were actually available at the park - I lost two dollars on it! Can I blame the lottery for the rain?

People are going to gamble, have sex, get buzzed, and do all the other evil deeds that the annointed one's wish to save us from, whether or not the holy one's agree with it. Sure, some go off the deep end and they will anyhow. This is total BS in my opinion. Bring on the slots and casinos and get rid of the lottery for education BS excuse. Fun is fun and sometimes it's fun to gamble and have few drinks. How many have played poker and had a few beers with friends? I've had some great times doing this! What is all the fuss? :)

If it's unfair to compare Cleveland to Detroit then it's certainly unfair to compare Vegas to any other city since it has been the ONLY city to thrive because of gambling not despite gambling. After all it was built on gambling. If people aren't traveling to Cleveland now they aren't likly to start touring much of Cleveland if they come to visit a casino. Having a casino doesn't significantly impact the touring industry in a city like Cleveland. People who actually travel to Cleveland to gamble will come in and spend the night and get their fix and run out on Sunday. Again most of the people wasting money in a Cleveland casino will be poor souls that live in the region. And let's assume that there are people who will all of a sudden decide to come to Cleveland to travel and gamble. Do we really think that money will offset the costs to the city/region/state that casino gambling will create? I think not. Again look at other struggling cities who added gambling as the great savior.

I wouldn't say that casinos are the cause of Detroit's problems, but i would say they aren't helping anything. Look at other cities that have gambling. The ones in West Viriginia, Canada, Atlantic City... It's not like they have anything going on there besides the gambling. And if there is something going on i assure you that was happening before the gambling.

Sure gambling can be used to generate tax revenue for many different things. But we don't even have an acceptable plan to deal with that money. There is no way that anyone should vote for this admendment based on the piss poor usage of these new tax revenues.

Again there is no reason to believe that casinos will bring any significant economic development to Cleveland or any other struggling city. It's like every other white elephant out there that was going to save America's downtowns. Like new stadiums, convention centers and malls like Tower City. All of those types of developments only create three things. Large costs to the city, large profits for the developers, and large areas of the city that become underused and anti-development vaccums.

If you like and want gambling, fine. I have zero issue with that. But don't try to give me a line of horse manure that casinos will bring in a whole lot of money or stimulate development. It's just not true.

CP-DAD, i couldn't agree with you more. But it's the way they want to impliment it right here right now that bothers me. I believe that at this time there is only provisions for two full blown casinos in the state. Both in Cleveland (one for Forest City and one for Jacobs) and it stinks to me. The rest would be for slot parlors at the horse tracks until revenue numbers come in. At some time in the future all of the horse tracks would have the opportunity to go full casino.

Not just who gets a casino stinks, but what they want to do with the new tax revenues also stinks in my opinion. Just like the scam with the lotto money.

And back to Voinovich:

Ralph Wiggum, sounds like you have a personal issue with him. Did he run over your puppy and not feel sorry?

Voinovich brought Cleveland out of default and lead the city though its best growth in the latter portion of the twentith century. Only now do we see as much significant development going on downtown. He then was at the helm of the state during the good times of the '90s when Ohio saw massive job growth and low unemployement. Sure i don't agree with his stance on taxing, but, he seems to be a pretty fair politician.

I dont see how a casino could hurt downtown cleveland right now.You get them to build a new convention center,hotel rooms and the casino.Hopefully this would bring some new businesses downtown for the crowd that does leave their hotel room and casino.Downtown is pretty bad,there are some developments,but a lot of dead storefront space.I have been photographing downtown for 4 years now and it has progressively become more deserted and run down.Something has to be done,not sure if a casino would be it,but it's more idea than anyone else has for this godforsaken main area of town.

Cedar Point already has casinos. "Kiddie Casinos". Also known as arcades.

MrScott

Jeff is correct in that the casinos do not fix a city or state's economy. The Auto industry in Detroit has gone to hell and the trickle down effect has pretty much ruined the economy here.

Of the three casinos, MGM and Greektown offer hotel rooms, but I can't believe people are coming to Detroit specifically to gamble. Money from the hotels connected to the casinos is benefitting the casinos ONLY. A portion of the gambling proceeds feeds back into the city...but the largest portion, again, stays with the casinos.

I would imagine the restaurants in Greektown are certainly benefitting, but that's about it. It certainly hasn't brought new businesses into the area to take advantage, mostly because the casinos were not built in the areas that could have used some improvement.

The draw that Vegas has is many casinos, restaurants and options all within walking distance of each other. The casinos in Detroit are so spread out, people go to one only, and tend to stay within a few blocks if they leave the casino at all.

People need another reason to come to Detroit besides gambling, and there isn't enough here to make that draw from out of state. In fact, I see more people preferring Windsor to Detroit, if anything because of the exchange rate.

What they do offer is jobs...but not enough to make up for the job losses within the auto industry, not to mention the pay is much lower. So I can't see how that has impacted the economy much except in the lower income area.

Additionally, unless the locals are winning, they aren't putting that money back into the local economy.

On the other hand, if a city already has a draw...warm weather, other entertainment options, tourism (I suspect the Indian casinos in Traverse City or on the Leewanau Penninsula have a better draw than Detroit, especially in winter because of the skiing options), then I can see some benefit to the local economy.

But it's certainly not here in Detroit.

I understand what you are saying, OldCPer. But I'd bet (pun intended) CP would love to operate a casino just off the causway.

MrScott