Why Casinos are the Wrong Bet for the Catskills

Catskill Mountainkeeper strongly opposes bringing off reservation casinos to the Catskills because of the pervasive and compelling environmental, social and economic problems that will accompany casino development.

We continue to work on our long-running campaign to block the construction of multiple Las Vegas-style casinos in the Catskills. In 2008, Catskill Mountainkeeper, working with NRDC and other environmental allies, played an instrumental role in the rejection by federal officials of several so-called “off-reservation” Indian casino proposals, including one to be built directly on the banks of the famed Neversink River. Unfortunately, recent federal policy changes have re-opened the possibility that these casinos could get the green light by the Obama Administration. And at the same time, owners of the Monticello Raceway and other of state racinos (which are a mix of horse racing and casinos) are pushing for an amendment to New York’s Constitution to allow them to operate full-blown casinos as well.

The threat of as many as four casinos along Route 17 near Monticello could not only bring a dramatic spike in traffic and pollution problems to the region, but could also forever change the unique rural character of the Western Catskills and bring serious infrastructure and social problems. We continue to vigilantly track these ever changing casino proposals and varying receptions to them at different governmental levels. We are ready to resume the active phase of our fight, including in court, against the building of numerous large-scale Catskill casinos as conditions on the ground warrant.

Environmental Problems
The threat of environmental problems from proposed casinos in especially sensitive ecological areas, such as along the Neversink River will:

Destroy broad swathes of thriving habitat, plant and animal life
Compromise water resources through deforestation, erosion, and construction blasting
Increase the risk of toxic substances entering surface and groundwater
Exacerbate the danger of flooding – threatening homes and property.

Currently 1,000,000 visitors travel up Route 17 to visit the Catskills each year. The combined visitors estimated for only one casino is more than 6 million! Building more than one casino could add millions more cars to the road. This 24-hour a day influx could overwhelm our roadways, making it extremely difficult for full and part time residents to move around the area for business or pleasure. It would discourage the existing tourist base from continuing to come to enjoy our natural beauty. Emissions from so many autos would contaminate our air and noticeably foul the quality of what we breathe.

While it is clear that these environmental dangers exist, no comprehensive environmental review has been completed to quantify the overall impact of bringing the casinos here. In fact, during the Bush Administration, the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs determined that one of these mega casino projects would have no significant impact on the environment and thus no full environmental review was necessary.

Economic Problems
While casinos are promoted as helping the local economy by bringing people to the area and increasing the local business base, each casino would be a self-contained destination “city” that would have all of the services, food, and retail outlets that visitors would need. They would not bring new revenue to our existing infrastructure of restaurants, bars, service establishments and small mom and pop businesses as promised. Instead they would create new levels of competition causing many of our businesses to go out of business.

Social Problems
Based on what has happened when gambling has been introduced in other communities, it is proven that casinos bring problems like increased crime, prostitution, poverty, violence, child and elder abuse, chemical dependency and suicide. These could affect virtually everyone in our community.

The American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association recognize gambling addiction as a pathological and compulsive mental disorder. Desperate to “chase” and recover gambling losses, pathological gamblers often turn to crime.

Warren Buffet said it well in an interview with Nebraska’s Gambling with the Good Life on September 15, 2004 when speaking against casinos that were being proposed in his home state:

“It’s certainly clear that a given percentage of people will become addicted and use money they’ve got no business using, and that percentage is not a small percentage.”

“Addictions produce crime. If you have a large group of people who are addicted to drugs, you’ll have more crime. If you have a large group of people who are addicted to gambling, you’ll have more crime. People get into impossible situations when they get addicted to something like that. And some people will opt for crime, some will opt for bankruptcy, some may commit suicide.”

“We’re going to have drug addicts in this country, but I don’t think the state ought to get in the business where it hopes there are more drug addicts and starts selling needles. And we’re going to have gambling addicts in this country but I don’t think that the state ought to become the sponsor of spreading that addiction.”

Who Benefits and Who Loses
Legislators are pushing hard to establish casino gambling in the Catskills so they can raise revenues without confronting the difficult task of raising taxes. They hope this will avoid the general outcry that comes from the public when taxes are raised. In effect they are knowingly exchanging all of the negative outcomes of casinos for a dramatic infusion of cash.

The casino owners, Native American tribes who live hundreds of miles away from the Catskills and developers who live out of state and even out of the country, will not leave any of their casino profits in our area. What they will leave our communities is the brunt of the high cost of crime, overtaxed infrastructures, pollution, etc.

A heavy burden will also fall on those people who patronize the casinos – the ones who provide the revenues to government and profits to the developers. Warren Buffet said it extremely well in 2004:

“For every lucky person there are hundreds of thousands who just keep feeding the kitty and, net, it’s a big loser for the citizenry.”

“I think it’s cynical on the part of the state to raise money from people who basically can’t afford it by promising them a dream that is not going to come true for any but the tiniest fraction of the people who participate, and that causes people to get into the kind of trouble I hear about every day.”

“If you take a million people and fifty or thirty or some number are going to change their circumstances dramatically for the better, but you’re going to have the other 999,000 plus who are going to lose the ability to take their families to a movie, to buy a toy for their kid, or worse yet, become an addict and lose everything they have including their self-respect and break up their family. I just think that’s a terrible trade off.”

What is the Alternative to Grow Our Economy?
Catskill Mountainkeeper strongly believes in the potential of economic revitalization in the Catskills. Our vision is to focus on the industries that we do best – like the resurgence of farming, farm to market efforts, main street revitalization, tourism, hotel development, the performing arts, alternate energy production, low impact industry, small business and the advancement of higher education. The Catskill area is a special, unique and irreplaceable place. We believe in smart sustainable growth that will retain our rural nature, wonderful vistas, open spaces, waterways, old growth forests and farmland.

When you consider all the facts – Casinos ARE the wrong bet for The Catskills!

They will bring damage and destruction to large swathes of our environment
They will bring unhealthy and destructive air pollution
They will bring a huge increase in vehicular traffic to our roads
They will introduce new levels of social problems and addiction to our area
The developers will remove profits from our area leaving behind only problems
Local businesses won’t get new business, they’ll have new competition
Tax revenues will provide a quick fix for politicians without addressing real issues
Avoiding environmental impact studies is evidence of irresponsible opportunism