HOME NEWS TRIBUNE OP-ED
April 6, 2007 — Two Bergen County lawmakers want the state to gamble that placing video-lottery terminals at the Meadowlands Racetrack will reap hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenues for Trenton, all the while protecting New Jersey's gaming industry against increasing competition from neighboring states. State Sens. Paul Sarlo and Joseph Coniglio, both Democrats, claim enough could be raised to help new Jersey dig out of its yawning budget hole.
Don't bet on it, though.
What's more probably is that this proposal would be little more than an even-sum game, meaning there is more or less a finite amount of gambling dollars to go around. Creating a second destination for slot players in North Jersey isn't going to increase the state's take by any significant measure. Rather, it's more likely to split the current slot-revenues total between two separate but competing pots -- hardly a major windfall.
Yes, new casinos that opened in Pennsylvania this January already are cutting into Atlantic City's take. But Meadowlands slots would not recoup those losses and would only accelerate Atlantic City's slide. It makes no sense for New Jersey to undercut its premier gaming location -- and what's become the biggest driver of the South Jersey economy.
The state would do better for itself and for South Jersey by concentrating its strategies and its policies on strengthening Atlantic City as the No. 1 destination for gamblers on the East Coast.
Meantime, New Jersey lawmakers ought to ask themselves whether gambling isn't only a bad habit for individuals but for states as well -- specifically this state. New Jersey has come to rely on gambling revenues as a means of affording an ever bigger and broader array of government programs -- an addiction in itself. Yet lawmakers have done next to nothing to fix the underlying reasons for much of their extra spending, from overly generous retirement and health benefits conferred upon public employees to the bloated size of state government itself, and so on.
Needless to say, the Meadowlands proposal has its pitfalls -- too many, this page believes, for it to be advanced any further. Rather, New Jersey needs to take another long and serious look at how it can beef up Atlantic City's position in the gaming universe. Only then should lawmakers consider the introduction of video gaming elsewhere in the state as part of a comprehensive, north-to-south blueprint for all of New Jersey.
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