Madison voters will consider a referendum Feb. 17 to allow the Ho-Chunk Nation to expand the gambling facilities at DeJope Bingo Hall.
While gaming is an activity that many enjoy, the economic and social costs that expansion will have on Madison make the referendum something students should oppose.
Casinos have become a quick-stop solution to upstart local economies throughout the country. Gambling facilities have demonstrated economic benefits for cities up and down the Mississippi River and throughout the Midwest.
If this referendum is approved, an intergovernmental agreement between Dane County and the Ho-Chunk Nation signed in November guarantees Madison would receive at least $1.5 million annually in the casino’s first two years from the Ho-Chunk Nation and $3.5 to $4.5 million each year thereafter. According to a city report released Tuesday, this share of profits, including the planned increases, is only enough to cover the additional police and fire department costs incurred by the city should DeJope be expanded.
According to William N. Thompson, a professor at University of Nevada-Las Vegas and the nation’s foremost gaming expert, the most probable casino visitors would be Dane County residents. He has conducted several studies on the nationwide effects of gambling, as well as a study on the probable effects of the DeJope gambling expansion on Dane County.
A competing study conducted by Northstar Economics, and funded by the Ho-Chunk Nation, alleges Dane County will garner a positive economic effect, but even Ho-Chunk admits that they did not consider the social cost a casino would impart on the campus, city and county.
In Thompson’s detailed study of the effects of expansion, he estimates the casino could bring as much as $52 million into the community. This figure exceeds even the estimate of Ho-Chunk’s internal prospectus.
However, his research predicts upward of $85 million will leave the community beyond the facility’s costs to the county and its citizens. Thompson, who has recommended casinos to other localities in the Midwest, used a line of investigation that predicts an overwhelming net loss of $33 million to the Madison area if the casino becomes a reality. And these are only the economic losses.
One must also consider the social impact of a casino on Madison.
Thompson warns that the elderly and those of student age are statistically the most vulnerable demographics for becoming compulsive or problem gamblers. He cautions that the Dane County area could develop between 6,500 to 22,000 problem gamblers. These same problem gamers would be prone to pursuing criminal activity as a means of furthering their habit. The average student on this campus lacks the financial means to even semi-regularly engage in an activity where 52 percent of the time he or she will lose money.
Notwithstanding, students are adults and we do not support paternal regulation against this activity. Although some students are capable of driving to the Dells right now, there is no free shuttle waiting outside Memorial Union to whisk them away on the hour. The Ho-Chunk nation has openly declared its intent to do something along these lines.
Witte residence hall is not the Wolf Lodge. Oppose the gambling referendum on Feb. 17.
