Issue 3 concerning support of casinos in Ohio is approved. The conditions include one casino in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Toledo and Columbus, but distribute a tax to all counties. The casino operators are required to pay a $50 million fee for state job training.
Two of three statewide issues passed easily Tuesday, with the third to allow casinos in Cleveland, Toledo, Columbus and Cincinnati well ahead in the polls.
Jumping out to a clear lead, State Issue 3 benefited early from large blocks of votes from the urban counties, particularly Cleveland and Cincinnati.
{ 105 comments… read them below or add one }
← Previous Comments
What I’m confused about is how the casinos are going to bring in out of state revenue. Indiana has its own casinos. Kentucky has its race tracks and can also visit Indiana’s riverboat. Michigan has its own casinos. West Virgina has its race tracks and I believe slot machines. Who will come to Ohio for a vacation when they can gamble in their own state or go somewhere glitzy like Las Vegas? Maybe, people from Pennsylvania will come but why when they can just go to New Jersey to gamble. Plus, when Ohio’s own citizens start spending their own money at the easily accessible casinos, it means that the money that might have otherwise gone to clothing , other forms of entertainment, and/or other goods won’t go there. What will that mean for other businesses? Will people at those businesses lose their jobs because of the need for that business to downsize? So are we really creating more jobs in the long run or are we just transferring the types of jobs available in Ohio? Plus what about the taxes that would have been generated for the state from the sale of goods that won’t be sold because people would prefer to spend their extra money on gambling because its the fun new entertainment? Will the taxes generated from gambling cover and exceed the cost of the taxes lost from sales at local businesses? Ok, so now let’s talk about problem gamblers. There have been numerous studies done that type A personalities are more prone to becoming problem gamblers yet type A’s are generally your better employees until they become problem gamblers. Once they become problem gamblers productivity at their place of business will go down. What will that cost local businesses in the long run? Even though problem gamblers are a small percentage of the population they can cost a community a lot of money. But since issue 3 was passed we will all have to live with whatever consequences it will bring. Hopefully they will be good but there is an overwhelming amount of research and statistics that indicate otherwise. I do think that since we are to have casinos that it was good that there was a monopoly given to only four. Free enterprise with casinos has been proven to be a disaster in most states that have legalized casinos; it has something to do with spreading the profits too thin which keeps the casinos from investing money back in to make improvements and keep the casinos nice. To be truly informed one must look at both sides of an argument. Most of the time no issue is good or bad but somewhere between the two.
I voted against the casinos because: 1. the amendment has a clause that overrules all city and county land and zoning rules, and therefore opens the way for a business possibly to destroy the homes of innocent citizens to build the facilities. 2. it discriminates against non-profits that will likely no longer be able to carry out similar games, against other for-profit companies that might wish to build competing casinos (thereby creating a monopoly), and against communities and cities such as Dayton that will not be able to have casinos themselves. While I appreciate the argument that one person should not force his or her own morals and values on another – God himself does not force a person to do anything, after all – there is still the possibility that a person who might lose everything to an addiction such as gambling may leave behind a foreclosed home and do his part to negatively impact his neighbor as well, and in the end that hurts all of us.
The people arguing that they will be minimum wage paying jobs, I’d say the ~10% of people who are unemployed would rather be making minimum wage rather than nothing…
Thanks for the intelligent social commentary matt . And thanks to this website for censoring my post about the out of work police officers who will benefit from this. I guess if I was a religious zealot like the rest of these people, I would’ve gotten my two cents in. Instead they chose not to post it at all. My point is we already have drugs, crime and serial killers in Cleveland. Is a casino that has no hotel going to make that even worse? Doubtfully. Is it going to put more police in the streets? Probably. One small casino in a city isnt going to turn Cleveland into the “new Detroit” the citizens have already done that themselves.
Gambling is a choice like any other vice. I guess we should ban McDonalds and Burger King next? Or maybe Free speech? This nation was founded on separation of church and state, so when the state votes, leave the church at home please. This is an economic issue not a religious debate.
Andy, Everything is a “religious debate”. Just because your religion is secularism doesn’t make it less religious. And this country was not founded on the “seperation of church and state”, it was founded on the belief that “All Men are created equal and endowed by their creator with cretain enaliable rights”. And this is a uniquely Christian concept.
← Previous Comments