Building ballparks for wealthy businesspeople is a scam that never helps a local economy. The same goes for legalizing gambling. It’s a bad bet that politicians keep making despite a preponderance of economic studies that prove the folly of such schemes. Urban theorist Richard Florida writes about New York’s drift into becoming a gambling haven in, of all places, the New York Daily News, which isn’t exactly known for its think pieces. An excerpt:

“For politicians, casino money is a powerful allure. Casinos offer a potent triple whammy of big ground-breakings; new jobs in construction, hospitality and gaming tables; and substantial new sources of public revenue. ‘[I]t’s important to look at other sources other than taxing people to death,’ Florida City’s Mayor Otis Wallace (whose city just proposed a 25-acre horse racing, jai alai and casino complex), told the Miami Herald.

While politicians and casino magnates seek to sell gambling complexes to the public as magic economic bullets, virtually every independent economic development expert disagrees — and they have the studies to back it up.

More than a decade ago, the bipartisan National Gambling Impact Study Commission’s Final Report concluded that while the introduction of gambling to highly depressed areas may create an economic boost, it ‘has the negative consequence of placing the lure of gambling proximate to individuals with few financial resources.’

When gambling is added in more prosperous places, ‘the benefits to other, more deserving places are diminished due to the new competition. And as competition for the gambling dollar intensifies, gambling spreads, bringing with it more and more of the social ills that led us to restrict gambling in the first place.'”