I’m opening a new thread since I can see most don’t understand why casinos exist. This discussion belongs under its own thread and not in the tipping thread. I hope this will help inform the people who have many misconceptions about casinos.
The casinos primary purpose is to generate revenue for state and local government’s. You can think of them as voluntary tax programs for the state, similar to why most states have lotteries. It’s not a coincidence that casinos became legal in Nevada in 1931, the same year that Hoover Dam project started. The government needed money to fund this project and our country was coming out of a depression, so it didn’t want to raise mandatory taxes. Hence, the voluntary tax program, called casinos.
New Jersey (Atlantic City) followed in 1976, and subsequent states legalized casinos one by one for all the same reason...to generate revenue for state and local governments. Today casinos are legal in at least 30 states.
Local communities also need to approve a casino before they can operate. I live in a state with a lot of casinos, but my local community is conservative and has NOT allowed them in. This comes up in every election on our ballot and it’s always voted down. Again, governments (local and state) are what determines if a casino can operate.
To summarize, casinos are run by private businesses for the purpose of generating revenue for our government. That’s why it makes no sense to criticize casinos for doing what their business model calls for. For those who haven’t figured it out, the casino’s business model is to provide negative EV games for the purpose of entertainment. If you don’t like casinos and think they are destructive to the poor and vulnerable (which is my view), then you should criticize our government and try to get them shut down. You should NOT criticize casinos.
In my opinion, there is a little difference between someone on welfare and an AP. The welfare person gets a check directly from the government, while the AP goes to the government’s voluntary tax center (casinos) to get their check. They both are more or less living off the government. This isn’t a popular view, but it’s the correct one.
I pay a lot of mandatory taxes with my current job, so I don’t feel too bad in extracting money from the government’s voluntary tax centers (casinos). I’m not saying what an AP is doing is wrong...it’s not! But let’s not try to make it out to be some noble job and make the casinos out to be the bad guy.