Gambling on gambling
I am probably going to stir up a hornets nest with this but here goes anyway...
Here in the Savage Lands we have Indian gaming and a fairly successful mid-size horse racing facility. I have long admired the tribes use of gaming profits to develop non-gaming related business interests. They have built a health club, a daycare center, a strip mall that includes a gas station run by the tribe, a hotel and a golf course. If the day comes when the casino profits dry up (not likely to happen anytime soon) well they can still provide for themselves. BRAVO for free enterprise!
Well now the race track wants to add slot machines (run by the Minnesota Lottery commission) and expand their card club (in addition to their live and simulcast horse racing) in order to do the same thing. They want to build an equestrian/agriculture center and hotel complex that would bring world class equestrian competition to the Twin Cities. Now I will admit my bias up front - I used to show in the type of equestrian competitions that would be brought to the area! I still know people in the business who would be coming up here should this facility be built.
This plan has opposition from the tribe and from conservatives. Now the tribes opposition I can understand. They feel that this will cut into their "action". The conservative opposition is what I am puzzled by. Here we have a regulated business who is wanting to expand the non-regulated part of their operation. Yes it will be funded by their gaming operation, I get that. The conservatives that are blocking this say that they do not want an "expansion" of gambling. The problem is, the tribe can expand their gaming operation at will and we have nothing to say in this, we have no say in the matter. The race tracks expansion would be tightly regulated by the state (which I am not horribly fond of but I understand the reasoning why) and it will ultimately benefit the county in the form of more jobs (and thus more employment taxes paid to the state) and more tourists (in the form of the horse show people who have unreal amounts of money) and in the form of property tax relief. It is a win/win for the area, as far as Ic an see...
However, I want to try to understand the other side. Why should conservatives object to racino at Canterbury Park?
Discuss in ccomments.
Here in the Savage Lands we have Indian gaming and a fairly successful mid-size horse racing facility. I have long admired the tribes use of gaming profits to develop non-gaming related business interests. They have built a health club, a daycare center, a strip mall that includes a gas station run by the tribe, a hotel and a golf course. If the day comes when the casino profits dry up (not likely to happen anytime soon) well they can still provide for themselves. BRAVO for free enterprise!
Well now the race track wants to add slot machines (run by the Minnesota Lottery commission) and expand their card club (in addition to their live and simulcast horse racing) in order to do the same thing. They want to build an equestrian/agriculture center and hotel complex that would bring world class equestrian competition to the Twin Cities. Now I will admit my bias up front - I used to show in the type of equestrian competitions that would be brought to the area! I still know people in the business who would be coming up here should this facility be built.
This plan has opposition from the tribe and from conservatives. Now the tribes opposition I can understand. They feel that this will cut into their "action". The conservative opposition is what I am puzzled by. Here we have a regulated business who is wanting to expand the non-regulated part of their operation. Yes it will be funded by their gaming operation, I get that. The conservatives that are blocking this say that they do not want an "expansion" of gambling. The problem is, the tribe can expand their gaming operation at will and we have nothing to say in this, we have no say in the matter. The race tracks expansion would be tightly regulated by the state (which I am not horribly fond of but I understand the reasoning why) and it will ultimately benefit the county in the form of more jobs (and thus more employment taxes paid to the state) and more tourists (in the form of the horse show people who have unreal amounts of money) and in the form of property tax relief. It is a win/win for the area, as far as Ic an see...
However, I want to try to understand the other side. Why should conservatives object to racino at Canterbury Park?
Discuss in ccomments.
posted by The Lady Logician at
7:39 PM
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