In the 1996 movie Swingers, two guys, yelling and pumping their fists with excitement, set out for Las Vegas from Los Angeles. At first, they chant, “Vegas, baby! Vegas!” As the drive wears on and on, their excitement slips right out the window.
Even then, one character, played by Vince Vaughan, promises that old-school glitz awaits at the other end of the ride. Their destination, he assures his compadre (Jon Favreau), is a former haunt of the Rat Pack, a manifestation of all that made Sinatra and his pals icons of cool.
When at last they arrive, they saunter through the open casino doors, and the two behold their Shangri-la. No Rat Pack awaits. The worn interior, punctuated by the flashing lights of slot machines, is populated only by a few late-night diehards, one of whom looks glumly over from beneath her hairdo. Things go downhill from there.
Maybe, as our own ride toward Vegas ends, we really are headed for Rat Pack casino cool. State Sen. Stan Rosenberg, back when the legislation was hotly debated, told me the Valley’s robust cultural economy has little to fear from the new Goliath coming to town. “We decided to be very aggressive on the subject,” Rosenberg said. “We included more provisions on this subject than I’ve seen in any legislation. Most states ignore the cultural impacts. I’m pretty sure it’s $4.5 million set aside each year to be used for major cultural venues in order to mitigate negative impacts.”
And it could be that the law’s provisions will do just what they say: mitigate the casino’s impact. With political careers at stake, I’m sure the pols did their best. Small arts venues near the casino site, like the Bing Arts Center, a monument to the determination of Springfield residents to revive and restore an old theater, had better hope so.
Thing is, there’s a big problem with the casino industry’s case, with or without the politicians as their representatives. It’s clear even in the words they choose. It is not gambling which takes place under their roofs, it’s the more innocuous “gaming.”
Look at the industry’s ads from the final publicity push before the Nov. 4 election, and you’ll find glaring absences. The word “gambling” never made an appearance, nor did “gaming.” Spokespeople told us Massachusetts residents “spend” money in out-of-state casinos; they don’t lose (or even win) money. Please, they asked us, let us keep these jobs. They didn’t, of course, specify what those jobs will be, or whether they’ll be desirable or easily attainable.
And the visuals? In no ad did we see a single slot machine, a craps table, or even a deck of cards. Our casinos will, apparently, only be full of restaurants, stage shows, and smiling recipients of service jobs. Our casino owners, they tell us, will clean up toxic sites and revitalize our economy. Their reaping of outsized financial rewards is, apparently, incidental.
So far, they have done one thing very well: avoided showing us what awaits inside our casino Shangri-la. Instead, they showed us an elderly woman tugging at our heart strings with the tale of losing her son to cancer. It’s a terribly sad story. It’s a story that isn’t about what happens inside casinos. In most of their ads, schmaltzy music provided the backdrop for descriptions of the positive, if nebulous, future that only the casino industry can deliver.
They left out the reality, of course, because it’s become increasingly clear that casinos haven’t lifted all boats—not even in the most extreme test case, the early ’90s casino invasion of economically devastated Tunica County, Mississippi. One study published in The Journal of Management Policy and Practice and co-authored by a representative of the Isle of Capri Casino, Inc., tells the tale of Tunica County: “(T)he county of approximately 8,000 people has more jobs than it does residents. Employees who originate from outside the county hold most of those jobs, particularly the better paying ones. It appears that casinos have dramatically reduced the unemployment rate for the area, however this assumption is not accurate, due to the influx of non-residents transferring to the area and accepting positions within the gaming industry. … Little of modern America has penetrated Tunica County outside of the influences brought from the introduction of gaming. … Residents of the county appear excluded from the basic pleasures most Americans appreciate and they do not experience what many would consider the American dream.”
Massachusetts isn’t Mississippi, of course. But if the casinos can’t markedly improve the economic status of one of the most disadvantaged places in the country, how will they manage it here?
All the comparisons and studies are irrelevant now. Our ride to Vegas is nearly complete. The casino industry has made its promises. Whatever awaits, it’s our problem now. The doors are about to swing wide.•
