Act 71 2004 purpose was to “save horse racing.” The so called property tax reduction” is not in this legislation.
Now, horse racing is dying again. Time to REPEAL Act 71!!
(I wrote rote this as a comment re the casino at a mall near Penn State. Could apply anywhere. DMB)
Gambling is gambling, is gambling no matter the type, location or the place/ cause where the spoils go.
Gambling itself produces no new wealth. It only recycles it. Many call it a form of theft as there is no product or service but is taking something of value without the socially acceptable means of getting what belongs to another or others by buying, earning, trading or getting as a gift or reward.
PA’s casino legislation’s purpose was to “save a dying horse racing industry.”
The legislation to allow horse racing to continue was to be sunsetted. So, at the end of the budget year, as we are now, all of a sudden over Fourth of July weekend, a thirty-three page bill on background checks for people who worked at the race track that languished all year until the end of the session morphed into over four hundred pages passed turning us into PennsylVEGAS. There were no actual hearings on the entire bill.
The legislation was blamed on Ed Rendell but GOP votes were needed and that suppository came by telling the citizens fighting for “property tax relief” that it could come from slots/ casino gambling. That was not in the ACT but was passed early in the following session, as promised, to get the needed GOP votes.
There was no cost – benefit study but information was given repeatedly at hearings on gambling expansion by experts and members of our statewide diverse coalition, PAGE, (of which I was a founding CITIZEN member) which had held off this disaster for sixteen years using common sense positions by those in the coalition and a passion for doing the right thing for the common good of PA citizens and our Commonwealth.
The lure of revenue and campaign funding not dumping UNnecessary harm won the hearts and minds of those elected officials and the gambling interests have been in charge ever since. Ongoing gambling expansion and continued economic drain from money poured into legalized theft/ gambling is reprehensible at the very least. Imagine putting the needed resources into public education than supporting a cruel and deadly sport which causes death to horses every year and economic burdens to society-at-large via the fallout from gambling.
Every bill of an activity or substance causing unnecessary harm should have to have a cost- benefit study. Sales pitches: impact studies lure the naive. We want discerning elected officials willing to stand up to the snake oil salesmen.
Legalizing something harmful never removes the harm. It just changes the legal consequences usually for those who promote, produce or in other ways profit financially from the “legalized” substance or activity with little to no regard for the negative impact on individuals or society-at-large.
Then GOP Rep. Paul Clymer presented a one page bill repealing the slots/ casino legislation but we were refused a hearing. As a person from Penn National once called me, I was relentless. After giving so many years fighting this egregious invader, I arranged a Citizen’s Hearing which was broadcast by PCN.
Laws that cause unnecessary harm can and should always be repealed. Stop allowing gambling interests to rule. People will make their own decisions about gambling but government should not be the enabler.
(I was “vice” chair of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling for nine years which was an unpaid position and I continue to try to stop the gambling interests to this day.)
MORE PA GAMBLING RELATED STENCH!
Once again, in an UNconstitutional move, our elected officials passed a MASSIVE GAMBLING bill, HB 271/ Act 42, 2017 without the required three days of separate readings in each chamber, with NO public hearings and with NO public input. A six page bill for a gambling hotline morphed into 936 pages in the Senate in 18 hours. The House had it for two hours before voting on it.
There doesn’t appear to be anywhere in PA where gambling is not enabled via this law. On the following page, you may read the Senate Summary of this obscene gesture to PA citizens. The Summary is 8 pages!!
Municipalities had two months to opt out of the NOT-SO-“mini(?)” fleecinos (with 300 to 750 slots and up to 50 table games) in their community by following these instructions, from the PA Gam(BL)ing Control Board.
MUNICIPALITIES WHICH OPTED OUT:
Counties could have opted out of having video gambling terminals at truck stops in their county by following these instructions from the PA Gam(BL)ing Control Board.
SB 321 was passed TO ALLOW ONLY Lancaster County MUNICIPALITIES TO OPT OUT OF TRUCK STOP VIDEO GAMBLING.
See the municipalities which opted out in Lancaster County.
Total population of PA = 12,784,237
79% are adults
Number of adults in PA 10,099,539
IMPACT STUDIES are NOT COST/ BENEFIT STUDIES. Gambling interests promote impact studies. BEWARE!
*BENEFITS per adult (from Distance consumer surplus for
Non-Problem, Non- Pathological
Gamblers) $34
*COSTS per adult for casinos
(Crime, Business. & Employment, Bankruptcy, Suicide no figures added due to age variables, Illness, Social Services , Direct Regulatory, Family Costs, Abused Dollars)
$190
$190 -$34 = $156
*Cutting the Cards and Craps: Right Thinking about Gambling Economics by Earl L. Grinols Table 1 Page 14
Annual cost in PA $1,575,528,o84
A Canadian community reports on how their Chamber of Commerce embraced a casino AT FIRST and what happened for them to come to a complete reversal.
The ONLY democratic solution to this is a REPEAL!! If this is what our elected officials believe is in the best interest of PA citizens, then start over. Be transparent!!! Have public hearings! END THE STENCH!
PEOPLE USUALLY DECIDE THEIR OWN ACTIONS … LEGAL OR ILLEGAL GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSIBILITY IS TO ACT IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THEIR CITIZENS’ HEALTH, SAFETY AND WELL-BEING.
Legalizing something harmful never eliminates the harm. It just changes the legal consequences and usually for those who produce, promote and in other ways profit financially from the “legalized” substance or activity with very little to no regard for the negative impact on individuals or society-at-large. __ Dianne M. Berlin
Unlike the purchase of a product or service, gamblers usually pay SOMETHING FOR NOTHING. Sounds like consumer fraud or a scam doesn’t it???
I cannot find much civic good in state-sponsored gambling. What is bad about it? It produces no product, no new wealth, and so it makes no genuine contribution to economic development.” __ Jack R. Van Der Slik, director of the Illinois Legislative Studies Center, Sangamon State University and co-author of Lawmaking in Illinois in “The Rostrum” March 1990/Illinois Issues/3
“According to Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Samuelson, it is basic economics that: ‘[Gambling] involves simply sterile transfers of money or goods between individuals, creating no new money or goods. Although it creates output, gambling does nevertheless absorb time and resources. When pursued beyond the limits of recreation, where the main purpose after all is to “kill” time, gambling subtracts from the national income.” ___U.S. National Security and the Strategic Economic Base: The Business/Economic Impacts of the Legalization of Gambling Activities.” John Warren Kindt, St. Louis University Law journal, Vol 39, No 2 (Winter 1995) Quoting Paul A. Samuelson, Economics 425 (10th Ed. 1976). See Also, “Legalized Gambling Activities As Subsidies By Taxpayers”, John Warren Kindt, Arkansas Law Review, Vol 48, No. 4, 1995 and “The Economic Impacts of Legalized Gambling Activities”, John Warren Kindt, Drake Law Review.