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Legsialtive Push for Casinos in Massachusetts has Failed

The August 08, 2023, By Zane Plate

Although the legislative push for legalizing casinos in Massachusetts has failed for the time being, the prospects of what supporters say would generate over 15,000 permanent jobs and around $350 millions in annual state revenues will be hard for state lawmakers to resist. Casinos and gambling have been among the most important topics on Governor Patrick’s agenda since 2007. Whatever will happen in the next election, the issue is not going to go away.

During a devastating depression, a disturbance in the Force and high unemployment, critics say that people tend to see casinos through very short range lenses, as if the God of Money is the only one left to worship. Most people do not understand the long term effect casinos dotting the landscape.

If sanctioned, casinos could dominate and claim legitimacy for generation. Will Americans remember Massachusetts as the place where t5hey played roulette, or the place where modern democracy was born?

Amid a budget shortfall and high unemployment, people see policy primarily through the lens of money and jobs, as if Mammon is the only god left to worship. They do not see casinos as lasting institutions that will dot our landscape – and erode our culture – forevermore.

Massachusetts is one of the wealthiest and most-educated states in the country, yet it is still racing to “get in the game” alongside gambling-friendly neighbors Rhode Island and Connecticut to pursue a false elixir.

Why should Massachusetts settle its economic troubles by trodding down the paths of others?

The “shot heard ‘round the world” in Concord, Mass., which ushered in the first battle of the American Revolutionary War, is the most significant event in Massachusetts history. It defines Massachusetts eternally as the birthplace of America and concurrently the birthplace of modern democracy. It follows that Massachusetts set its own course and did not follow the lead of other colonies in seeking independence from Britain’s tyranny.

To those who would banter and bray that casinos would create thousands of good-paying jobs, Thoreau would retort, “Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now.”

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