Gambling News by Gambling Headquarters

Electronic-slots parlors would generate thousands of jobs and tens of millions of dollars to seed local business growth, gambling supporters say. But the four parlors that would sprout in Greater Cleveland are by no means a sure bet to bolster the region's economy, anti-gambling forces respond. Even the local power brokers who back the plan to bring nine parlors and 31,000 slots to Ohio acknowledge that gambling is not an engine of resurgent economies. "If you were to start from scratch and draw your optimal economic development paradigm, you wouldn't necessarily include gambling as part of it," says Fred Nance, adviser to Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson and chairman of the Greater Cleveland Partnership, the local chamber of commerce. Yet Nance, Jackson, Cuyahoga County commissioners and other civic leaders say slots at two sites downtown - and at racetracks in North Randall and Northfield - would join lakefront museums and Gateway sports sites as valued attractions. "This is the biggest project and proposal this community has confronted since 1990," said Commissioner Tim Hagan.

But critics say, and research suggests, that casinos can exact a toll on local economies. They pull money from local businesses and create social costs, due in part to gambling addiction.

It might be a positive for Cleveland, where two casinos along the Cuyahoga River "will suck money in from the suburbs," argues Ed Morrison, an economic-development consultant working on business-growth strategies for the Cuyahoga County Department of Development.

"But you're basically just taking money out of the home market," Morrison adds.

Local leaders are intimately familiar with the plan -- a team of business, labor and city-county elected leaders haggled over the details with racetrack owners and two prominent developers, Forest City Enterprises Inc. and investor Jeff Jacobs.