Re: Pa. should be able to avoid an Atlantic City-style gambling recession, market analyst says
Reliance on gambling revenues by our state legislators is as foolish as their previous reliance on continued “guaranteed” stock market gains that have us in our current pension crisis.
I have nothing against gambling and our casino industry will NOT go bust; however, it will decline and I believe you may even see a casino or two close.
New York State will legalize casino gaming, not just at Indian casinos, and that will be the game changer. When a casino opens within 30-40 minutes of NYC you will see New Jersey take a whole new approach. To compete with New York, they will deal Atlantic City their final death blow with a casino at the Meadowlands to compete with New York and at least at a state level, maintain some gambling revenue since AC will be dead.
Anyone who does not see the impact that this will have here in PA is a fool and probably thought not funding pensions based on stock market gains was a good idea.
These markets are only so big and casinos, or convention centers, can only be the savior of a limited number of states/communities.
I am all for casinos and would love to see one in downtown Lancaster at the site of our convention center; however, if we think they are the long term answer to our statewide budget problems, we have a much larger problem.
