Needed: Rich Dudes

It's screw or be screwed, apparently.

by Isaiah Thompson

Next week, Philadelphia mega-lawyer Stephen Cozen will explain to the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board why it should extend Foxwoods' casino license when his team has been totally unable to find investors for their shaky project. Cozen needs rich dudes, and he needs them fast. So, what's the holdup, rich dudes? Maybe they see something the Gaming Board, the legislature and Gov. Ed Rendell do not: that gambling is not an industry, but a tax — on the small portion of people with the strange habit of coughing up irresponsible amounts of money at slot machines. And maybe they're wondering if that much-desired population can actually support yet another Philadelphia-area casino. (SugarHouse is under construction, and Parx, in Bensalem, is already open.)

The question — what's the gain? — is so obvious that you'd think city leaders would be asking it, too. But so far, they haven't. Mayor Nutter long ago made clear that he took issue with Foxwoods' waterfront location, but not its doing business here; state Sen. Larry Farnese, whose district encompasses both casinos, has called for Foxwoods' license to be revoked, but says it should be rebid in a new location.

Here's another idea: Why not revoke it altogether?

A recent study commissioned by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, which offered assessments of both pro- and anti-casino studies that preceded it, concluded that it was impossible to tell whether the benefits of casinos outweigh the costs — in crime, in lost opportunity, in gambling addiction and misery — to the communities that host them. The decisive factor, it noted, was whether they drew patrons from other areas.

It's screw or be screwed, apparently. Luckily, we don't have to speculate about where our casino patrons will come from. During a 2008 presentation to the Gaming Board, Parx — protesting a proposed Valley Forge license — noted that "nearly all" of its "repeat players" lived within 25 miles of the casino, and that more than half of its patrons lived within 25 miles of the Foxwoods or SugarHouse sites. Foxwoods isn't expected to generate money, it's expected to take it: from us and our neighbors, to be divvied up between the state and some rich dudes, yet to be found.

But when even they aren't biting, why the hell are we?