Search Publications
Search through our comprehensive archive of publications on marriage, family, and civil society
Found 23 results by Paul Davies
Hold the line against sports gambling
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver's call to legalize sports betting – a major break from his fellow big league executives that's being praised for its supposed candor – demonstrates a profound lack of understanding of the issue. Silver's main argument is that many fans already bet illegal...
Lawmakers all in on gambling as revenue crutch
Nor do casinos provide sustainable tax revenues for states - which are often lawmakers' main motive to legalize gambling. Thanks to oversaturation, casino revenues have been dropping in a number of states, including Connecticut, Delaware, and Ohio. Even Pennsylvania's once-booming casino market has ...
Legalizing South Florida casinos would impact Gainesville
After all, studies show that the increases in crime, divorce, suicide and bankruptcy are mainly within a 75-mile radius of where the casino opens. But that doesn't mean Gainesville-area residents won't be lured to South Florida if the proposed casinos are legalized there. To be sure, the casinos wil...
Casinos prey on elderly residents
Fayetta Martin, an assistant professor at Wayne State University, has studied how gambling addiction is associated with other mental health and substance issues. She said the casino industry enabled the problems. "During my research and visits to the casinos, I noticed that the casino was supplying ...
Florida will lose with gambling
After all, studies show that where casinos locate there is an increase in crime, bankruptcy, suicide and divorce. One study by economist Earl Grinols found that every $1 a casino brings in creates $3 in social and economic costs. Casinos do not generate much new spending but instead divert it from e...
Gambling bill faces long odds on producing any reforms
This gets to the larger question: Why is Florida even considering more gambling? Residents are not clamoring for casinos. In fact, Florida voters have rejected efforts to legalize casinos in 1978, 1986 and 1994. A plan to bring three casino resorts to South Florida died just two years ago. Lawmakers...
Money, influence still pushing casinos for Florida
In fact, the slots are so lucrative casinos often agree to pay a tax as high as 50 percent or more on gambling revenues, provided they are guaranteed a monopoly in a market. Lawmakers often go along with the gambling plans – despite the well-documented social and economic costs – bec...
Why casino gambling is a bad bet for New Hampshire
New Hampshire's timing could not be worse. Casino tax revenues are falling in many states thanks to oversaturation. In the Northeast, especially, casinos in Connecticut, Maine and Rhode Island are battling for market share. The addition of casinos in Massachusetts and New York will add to the glut. ...
Casinos are a losing bet
Perhaps the best case study of the impact of casinos is Atlantic City, where casinos were legalized more than 30 years ago to revitalize the struggling resort. Yet the town remains largely a dump. Residents living below the poverty line have grown to 29.3 percent from 22.5 percent. The unemployment ...
The Return of the Financial Predators
Be Our Guest: A vote to legalize commercial casinos is a losing bet
Lawmakers talk a good game about casinos as "destination resorts," but that defies the reality at Resorts World. Gamblers get there mainly by bus, subway or car and then go home. The Resorts World business model depends on locals coming again and again. Some come for fun, but studies show up to 60% ...
Cuomo's push to legalize casinos in N.Y. has been dishonest
There have been no detailed studies released about how many casinos the state could support or even where they should be built. The public has not seen an analysis of the costs and benefits of legalizing casinos. No one has even examined whether it is a good public policy for the state to fund its b...
Stacked Deck : Inside New York's Dishonest Casino Plan
Stacked Deck: Inside the Politics of New York's Dishonest Casino Plan, documents the political deals that led to New York's proposed constitutional amendment. Written by Paul Davies, former journalist at the Wall Street Journal and Philadelphia Inquirer and currently the Maggie Walker Fellow at the ...
NY casinos a losing bet
With all due respect, your Oct. 13 editorial urging voters to to legalize casinos lacked rigor and ignored reality. Instead, it read like the talking points of casino lobbyists and the Cuomo administration... As for the projected $430 million in tax revenue from New York's casinos, the figure does n...
Valley Views: Cuomo and Legislature not leveling with voters on casinos
The effort to tip the scales in favor of casinos stems in part from polls that indicate voters are split over whether or not to legalize casinos. (After all there is a reason why the Constitution prohibits casinos.) Perhaps the opposition would grow if voters knew about the many social and economic ...
Does New York need more casinos? Paul Davies
The author of Stacked Deck: Inside the Politics of New York's Dishonest Casino Plan urges New Yorkers to really look at the issues at stake in the proposal to change New York's Constitution. Politicians and their monied backers are hoping we ignore the real motives behind what has always been a regr...
Gambling Won't Be the Jackpot New York Needs
Studies show casinos lead to an increase in theft, violent crime, substance abuse, divorce, suicide and bankruptcy among the people who live near them. One study by Baylor's Grinols, University of Georgia's David Mustard and the University of Illinois' Cynthia Dilley found 8 percent of crime in coun...
NY blinded by the money and false promises of casinos
Yes, casinos generate jobs and tax revenue. But gambling also strips wealth from the local economy and especially preys on the most vulnerable. Just take a look at how little 30-years of casinos have done to revitalize Atlantic City.
Gambling is still morally bankrupt
The main problem is that gambling is an insidious and unsustainable way to fund government operations. That's because casinos are nothing more than a regressive tax that creates more problem gamblers. A study last year by the University of Maryland, Baltimore County found that one in every 30 state ...
Gambling is still morally bankrupt
The main problem is that gambling is an insidious and unsustainable way to fund government operations. That's because casinos are nothing more than a regressive tax that creates more problem gamblers. A study last year by the University of Maryland, Baltimore County found that one in every 30 state ...
