Michigan economy doomed by Ohio casino vote!

by: Eric B.

Sun Nov 08, 2009 at 11:51:40 AM EST

If I would have had money to donate to one political campaign this year, it would have been in favor of the Ohio proposal to allow casinos to be built in that state's biggest cities. My thinking on this is, "They're welcome to them. In fact, if they want Michigan's casinos, they can have those, too."

There was a guy I knew in college who used to go to the Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort before it was the Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort. He blew a lot of money there, too. In fact, he blew so much money there that he was given as a consolation prize a framed picture of a Native American chief in full head dress standing in what I can only describe as Sun Salutation, step two. From what I heard, you too could get one of these framed photos if you were willing to fork over to the Tribe the tidy sum of $5,000 (and this was in 1992 dollars).

I don't have a personal objection to casinos, you understand, in the same way that I don't object to people drinking, smoking, doing drugs, or consorting with women of ill repute. I'm not ammoral, just indifferent, and if people want to spend their money sitting in front of a slot machine, slowing letting their skin and hair turn an ashen grey and watching their life savings slowly drain away ... well, life is filled with many such minefields.

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I do draw a line when we talk about embracing such behavior as a form or economic development. Before we go further, I should probably point out to anyone not already familiar that I live in a town that about a decade and a half ago embraced economic development on the backs of a casino. Well, it wasn't really the town, but the local tribe of Native Americans.

I don't begrudge them the success or resources that the Soaring Eagle has brought to town, although it has brought to town just as many problems. I can't find it right now, and I have no intention of digging any further to do so, but a couple of years ago, the Lansing State Journal's John Schneider wrote one of those "I help the little guy" columns about how the Isabella County prosecutor was busting a little guy from Lansing who'd come to the Soaring Eagle, found $20 worth of credits in a slot machine, and played them. As it turns out, the $20 belonged to a retiree couple who'd walked away from the machine and realized what they'd done a few minutes later. I should probably point out further that the guy who took the $20 in credits had watched the retirees walk away from the machine and waited until he thought they weren't going to come back, and then played their credits. When the couple did, in fact, come back, he refused to give them any money, and that's when casino security brought the local prosecutor into the mix. This kind of event, you see, is a fairly common one. (The case ended when the defense attorney engaged the age-old yet never codified "Finders keepers, losers weepers" play, which ultimately won the day.)

This is what economic development by casino amounts to ... bringing money to the community off the worst in people's behavior. You build a casino in your town to help keep the roads paved, and what you're saying is this ... "Part of our plan for economic development involves stealing money from old people." That's as much of an iron-clad truth as you're going to get from anyone today.

We used to be an economy that made things, things to be proud of. Now, part of our hopes are to be an economy that encourages theft in pursuit of dead and hopeless dreams. If you don't cash in your chips when you're up, the House will catch you. It's a hopeless dream, and if Ohio wants to pursue it, I say we wave them a white hankie and say, "Good luck with that."