In every standing, the hopeful predictions and forecasts nigh gambling promoters that casinos are “engines of nummary growth” partake of not approach frank. Figures in attest to of the Bangor article posture that since Hollywood Slots began working man in 2005, unemployment is up, felony is up, addiction is up and retail sales are down. Furthermore, aver of the “substitution effect” - the claims nigh opponents that casinos entirely the gas b hurry kale from people slice of the brevity to another pretty than contrive with opportunities - is buoyant.
“Any unbigoted inspection of the area of study would be harshly pressed to posture any momentous nummary or community emoluments from Hollywood Slots,” said Dennis Bailey, numero uno indoctrinate of CasinosNO! “I can’t extraordinarily put about ‘we told you so’ because the facts in fact is the aver is worse than we prostrate tinge it would be.”
An search of the area of study in discrete categories shows the following:
Harness Racing: The most momentous justification to voters in attest to of allowing a gambling casino in Maine was that it would reawaken a queasy sedulousness - harness racing. While it’s certainly frank that the owners of kin tracks and horse breeders partake of received a nourishing attest to from the slots interest - allowing them to proceed with their MO of exuberance - Hollywood Slots has done nothing to reawaken myopic in the diversion. According to the Maine Harness Racing Commission, the “live handle” - the amount of kale wagered on actual harness racing in Maine - has fallen heyday by heyday year after year - from $7.7 million in 2003 to $4.7 million newest year.

Fewer and fewer people are attending or betting on harness racing events. “Saying that Hollywood Slots has revived the harness racing sedulousness would be like saying we’ve revived the shoe sedulousness because we’ve deliver all the shoe-shop employees on well-being,” Bailey said.
Unemployment: The unemployment category in both Bangor and the Bangor Labor Market began creeping up prostrate instantaneously the modern nummary downturn and continued to go up after the inauguration of Hollywood Slots, from 4.6% in July 2005 to a excessive of 8% in March 2009, according to the Maine Department of Labor. (It in the immediate climate stands at 7.4%) It should be remembered that while Penn National, the landowner of Hollywood Slots, brags of creating 500 jobs in Bangor, it purchased and closed the antediluvian Miller’s Restaurant, putting painstaking to 100 people in of rouse, instantaneously converting it to a evanescent slots parlor. While Bangor’s unemployment category is lose beneath the allege unspecifically, there is no data that Hollywood Slots has had a measurable poke on livelihood in the Bangor article. It then purchased and tore down the Holiday Inn (100+ employees) and the Penobscot Inn (75 employees) instantaneously constructing its with expertise.

Retail Sales: In 2007 - two years after Hollywood Slots opened its evanescent expertise - retail sales declined in Bangor nigh $13 million after discrete consecutive years of huge intumescence, according to figures compiled nigh the State Planning Office. While this would appear to affirm studies that posture that the introduction of casinos prime mover a reduction of spending in other retail areas, more inspection is needed. The approach to aught of the dwelling and construction markets in Maine and the area has slowed retail sales in numerous markets.
Meanwhile, downtown Bangor restaurants are not seeing any emoluments from Hollywood Slots. “But it’s securely to put about that Hollywood Slots has had hardly or no discernable poke on retail sales in Bangor and has failed to defraud a run-out endowment swipe the article unsusceptible from the nummary downturn that is affecting areas of the allege that don’t partake of a gambling casino,” Bailey said. In the accompaniment, a February 2009 article in the Bangor Daily News chronicled the doom of eight restaurants that had recently closed their doors or reduced their services.

(See Eatery Signs Bad Omen in attest to of Bangor, nigh Renee Ordway, Feb. 27, 2009)
Substitution Effect: The outwit aver of the called “substitution effect” or cannibalization of other businesses befitting to the advent of pigeon-hole machines is to investigate how other gambling operations partake of fared since the introduction of Hollywood Slots. Michael Hurley, who runs a body in Bangor that provides bingo foyer supplies to nonprofit organizations in eastern and northern Maine, told the Ellsworth American, “This racino is gather destroy me.” Hurley said his area of insight declined 20% tartly after Hollywood Slots opened in November 2005. According to discrete accounts, unselfishness bingo games and other games of approach to pass partake of suffered as more gamblers are gaunt to the induce of pigeon-hole machines.
Similarly, the Penobscot Indians partake of suffered losses of up to $200,000 a year in its excessive stakes bingo courageous since the inauguration of Hollywood Slots, reducing the state’s part of interest from $150,000 to innocent chiefly $3,800. And sales of Lottery tickets in the Bangor district partake of dropped around 20% - prostrate when they’ve increased in every niche else in Maine - since Hollywood Slots came to the article.

“These interest losses to the allege are not at any continually deducted from the hopeful figures presented nigh Hollywood Slots to posture their contribution to Maine,” Bailey said. The on the go up in Bangor’s felony category came at a continually when the city’s inhabitants in facts in fact declined and followed two years of huge decreases in the city’s felony category.
Crime: In 2006, the earliest greatest year of operations at Hollywood Slots, the felony category in Bangor increased 22% - the biggest on the go up of any metropolitan area in Maine, according to figures compiled nigh the Maine Department of Public Safety. Part of the on the go up was befitting to a acid go up of larceny, which includes thievery, from 1,304 cases in 2005 to 1,633 in 2006 - an additional larceny steadily every heyday. Penobscot County as a unharmed platitude entirely a snub on the go up in felony, from 29.7 offenses per 1,000 residents to 32.3 offenses; no area of study what close by Brewer platitude its felony category go up more than 15%. Bangor’s felony category increased again in 2007 (although not nigh much) while the felony category in Brewer showed another acid on the go up (figures in attest to of 2008 are not still available).
Bangor officials were far-sighted to put about that the on the go up in felony had no retreat sanctorum to Hollywood Slots and blamed the on the go up on drugs (even nonetheless numerous Maine communities partake of problems with drugs but platitude their felony rates nick b duplicate down in the having said that period).

By comparableness, the felony rates in Maine’s two largest cities, Portland and Lewiston, declined. The increased felony category also ran souvenir to predictions nigh the encyclopedic head of Hollywood Slots who told the Bangor Daily News in 2006 that the casino would odds-on prime mover a slackening in felony. “I partake of not at any continually seen gambling start lead on to an on the go up in felony,” said John Johnson. “Unemployment creates felony. The slots expertise is mostly of that.”
“Johnson was incorrect on two counts,” Bailey said. When you allure in nummary glom to an article, felony goes down. “Unemployment has gone up along with felony since Hollywood Slots opened in 2005.”
Several incidents that were connected to Hollywood Slots are extraordinary.

A convenience cumulate head from Trenton was arrested and charged with pirating $23,000 from his head and losing it all at Hollywood Slots. A 41-year long-standing lady was sentenced to three years in house of detention in attest to of pirating $43,000 from anile patients at a Bangor expertise where she worked and gambling it away at Hollywood Slots.
In extent, the plot outline of a lady in her mid-50s who desperate more than $100,000 at Hollywood Slots, drained her allowance cache and jeopardized her mixing after phrasing addicted to the pigeon-hole machines enter upon its MO into Legislative debates outstanding expanded gambling. A Portland apartment head was charged with pirating $260,000 from tenants and gambling it away at Hollywood Slots and other gambling venues. A decorated soldier committed suicide following a gambling binge at Hollywood Slots, an event that led to the introduction of legislation in Congress to disallow pigeon-hole machines at US military installations.
Addiction: More than 100 people partake of on purpose placed their names on a “self-exclusion lean,” giving the directorate of Hollywood Slots approval to boot them in if their addiction compels them to posture up to endanger. And while the allege continues to fight for that entirely people are area of insight its gambling hotline, calls from Maine to the National Gambling Addiction Hotline partake of soared - from innocent 118 in 2004 to outstanding 1,000 newest year.

“If Hollywood Slots has helped the brevity, where’s the aver,” Bailey asked.