about $10,000,000 a year.

The article in the Erie Times highlighting bank robberies and the FBI’s success rate of catching the criminals was disheartening. While in no way did the Times blame the Presque Isle Downs, it did point out that one of the suspects robbed a bank in light of his gambling problems.

Sure, these things happen everywhere else in the nation and not everybody has a problem with gambling. But, gambling will exacerbate any problem. I am soooo confused as to why people ever thought the Casino would ever solve any financial problem. Doesn’t anyone remember that gambling CAUSES problems? Jeez….

Here is the problem: rich people typically do not gamble. So who does? Middle to Low income people do. Herein lies the conundrum: our society builds costly support programs for these people, get them up on their feet…….and…….put in a Casino that will put most of them in a downward spiral all over again.

A good way to make sure the only people gambling are the ones that can afford it is by keeping the traveling costs at a price point that exceeds the willingness or ability of those that can’t afford it. For instance: I cannot afford nor have the time to fly to Las Vegas everyday to gamble. Since I can’t, I don’t. But, if I did have the time and money, then I could probably afford it.

Poor people are easy to attract. It is the rich, smart ones that Erie seems to have been struggling with attracting when they decided to put in the Downs.

With this said, we can assume that the county (and the taxpayers) was willing to make problems worse for certain people with gambling tendencies and tolerate problems that accompany them for the small benefit of about $10MM a year.

“Whadda deal!–got any more like this?!”