Casino Commonwealth

Urban or suburban casinos?

Josh Resnek — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 11:04:47 +0000

The Massachusetts Gaming Commission believes that locale may be the key to a successful gaming operation for casinos in Massachusetts. To this end, the commission is exploring whether or not the three casinos it will ultimately sanction in Massachusetts should be located or rather, be hidden away in heavy woods out of reach of urban life or should locate in the heart of bustling cities like Boston.

"Mind boggling" is how this decision, among many, many others, was termed the commission must make in a Boston Globe article published over the weekend. It is hardly mind boggling.

The idea that casino location in cities or in the woods could be key to their ultimate success, are questions that were answered decades ago by casino operations that flourished then and which flourish now all over Europe. In nearly all the great and many minor cities of Europe, and in former castles hidden away in the European countryside, casinos exist and they flourish. They offer jobs and a flow of enormous tax revenues almost wherever they are in operation.

Everyone is betting

Josh Resnek — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 23:38:28 +0000

Ed. note: The ramifications of casino gambling are huge, both statewide and in communities such as East Boston and Revere. Starting today, Josh Resnek will explore and explain the coming gambling wave, with his unique insights as former vice president and editor of the Independent Newspaper Group, which cover, among other places, East Boston, Revere and Everett.

All the casino talk and machinations by those seeking licenses in the state's three regions A, B, and C to this point in time pale by comparison with the Massachusetts Gaming Commission's paralytic behavior.

In a cold, harsh and relentless business climate where time is of the essence, where time is about money made and money lost, money given away to others moving faster than you are and gaining advantages perceived and realized, having the slows is dangerous business. Frankly, it is bad business.

Abraham Lincoln coined the phrase about having the slows during the Civil War when his General of the Union Army George McLellan was acting a bit like Massachusetts Gaming Commissioner Steven Crosby.