Casino

Congressman Patrick Kennedy Wants to Expand Gambling in Rhode Island, Even Though He Is “Personally Opposed”

By Carroll Andrew Morse | February 15, 2007 |

Congressman Patrick Kennedy will seek to use Federal law to reverse the people of Rhode Island’s rejection of an Indian casino. But don’t worry. According to John E. Mulligan and Katherine Gregg, reporting in today’s Projo, Congressman Kennedy does not support the expansion of gambling in Rhode Island. He just favors allowing gambling to be…

Gambling Reservation

By Marc Comtois | December 20, 2006 |

According to ProJo’s 7to7 Blog: The Narragansett Indian tribe is pursuing plans to build a slot parlor on its lands in Charlestown and has approached Rhode Island’s Congressional leaders about reversing a federal law that would block their efforts. “We don’t want table games. We don’t want roulette. We want what the state has,” Chief…

Healey: Question 1 Results Prove Viability of Voter Initiative

By Marc Comtois | November 25, 2006 |

Robert Healey, Cool Moose Party Lt. Governor candidate, writes in a letter-to-the-editor that appeared in Friday’s Warwick Beacon (and probably in other local papers): In the aftermath of Question 1 there is an interesting point for those who support Voter Initiative. Too often labor and others with vested interests in maintaining the status quo of…

Casino Redux: The ProJo Position Gets Curiouser and Curiouser

By Marc Comtois | November 8, 2006 |

Hopefully, this will be my last Casino post for a while (but ya never know…) I was driving home from work and heard the Providence Phoenix’s Ian Donnis talking to Dan Yorke about the curious ProJo flip-flop on the casino. As Ian noted, Dan had covered the issue at length (and I had a few…

ProJo: Here’s Why We Flip-Flopped on Casino

By Marc Comtois | November 2, 2006 |

The ProJo disavows conspiracy theories and tries to explain why it changed it’s mind on the casino: The editorial speaks for itself, but we repeat here that the prospect of more jobs for Rhode Islanders, especially for hard-pressed low-income people, including immigrants, was the overwhelming factor. That’s it. One run-on sentence of explanation as to…

The Destination versus the Convenience Gambler: Is There Really any Evidence of a Distinction?

By Carroll Andrew Morse | November 2, 2006 |

Casino proponents want you to believe that the universe of casino gamblers is divided into two groups, “destination” gamblers, who want to make an event out of their gambling trips, and “convenience” gamblers, who are interested in more frequent but less expensive trips. Based on this hypothetical partition, casino proponents claim that a Harrah’s casino…

Arguing Against a Casino in a Soundbyte Culture

By Justin Katz | October 30, 2006 | Comments Off on Arguing Against a Casino in a Soundbyte Culture

Ah, well. I understand the choices that are unavoidably part of crafting a short news segment, but I can’t say I’m thrilled with the soundbyte that BSR88.1 reporter Chris Gang chose from my 20 minute conversation with him for his piece on the casino question on Off the Beat. The argument I tried to present…

The ProJo’s Naive and Logically Suspect Casino Endorsement

By Marc Comtois | October 24, 2006 |

The ProJo’s endorsement of a casino displays a willingness to believe everything good about the proposal and nothing bad. That alone makes it perhaps one of the most sophomoric endorsement I’ve ever read. Yet, even the naivete could be dismissed if the Journal’s editorial board had seen fit to mention at least once in their…

The Slippage Formula

By Carroll Andrew Morse | October 24, 2006 | Comments Off on The Slippage Formula

One reason that the RIPEC casino study and the Rhode Island Building Trades casino study (links via Dan Yorke) come to different conclusions about the financial impact of building a West Warwick casino is that the Building Trades study assumes there slippage payments will only be made for two years after the opening of a…

Casino Opponents: Strange Bedfellows

By Marc Comtois | October 11, 2006 |

Harrah’s is spending $106,000 a day and still can’t move the poll numbers. Rhode Island College’s Bureau of Government Research and Services has released a poll that indicates 56% of likely voters oppose the casino, 33% support it and 10% are undecided. This is in line with the Brown University poll last month that had…