Casino Expansion Plans Get Voter Approval in Three States

Five states featured amendments to expand casino gambling within their borders during Tuesday’s midterm elections and three of those initiatives received better than 50 percent of the required vote.

Massachusetts voters ratified a plan to allow three full-service casinos in the state.  Those in South Dakota voted to permit more games in that state’s existing casinos in Deadwood City.  Rhode Islanders voted 57 to 43 to offer table games at an existing racino in Newport, though city voters ultimately rejected the measure making it null and void.

Gambling questions were asked in eight state elections including Tennessee, where voters approved by a wide margin the allowance of raffles and lotteries held by nonprofit groups.

Josh Baro of the New York Times observed the strange trend.

The approvals, including the moot statewide vote in Rhode Island, are part of a strange trend. States have gradually expanded legal gambling over the last four decades, as a way to generate revenue without unpopular tax increases. But large parts of the American market for gambling are now saturated, with revenues in decline in most major casino markets. A majority of Americans already live relatively near casinos, so opening new properties does more to shift revenues around than generate new business. As supply has outpaced demand, some casinos are closing, and governments have missed their projections for gambling-related revenue.

Among the gambling initiatives featured on this year’s midterm election ballots, the Massachusetts expansion plan appears to encompass the greatest seismic shift.

The effort to repeal a law to move forward with the expansion, Question 3, trailed about 60 percent to 40 percent with 97 percent of the votes counted Tuesday evening. Now resort casino plans for Springfield and Everett can move forward.  Proponents of the law believe casino gambling can change the luck of the two struggling cities.

- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com