During this week leading up to the 25th anniversary of the opening of the first casino in Atlantic City, The Press will publish editorials marking milestones in the history of legal gambling in the resort. The following is excerpted from a front-page editorial that ran Nov. 3, 1974, endorsing the state's first casino-gambling referendum, which failed.
Casino gambling has been pictured as the only thing that can save Atlantic City and as an invitation for organized crime to take over New Jersey. It is neither.
Instead, it is the best potential answer to a complex set of sociological and economic problems.
Atlantic City does stand to gain ... primarily through stimulation of a lagging economy. Jobs would be provided and capital investment in new hotels would be a certainty. As entertainment, casinos would lure tourists from throughout the East, spreading indirect economic benefits elsewhere in the state.
No one is proposing an East Coast version of raucous Las Vegas. Instead, a sedate atmosphere like that provided by casinos in the Caribbean and Europe is envisioned.
Those places have operated free of organized crime and scandal and have set an example that Atlantic City and New Jersey can follow.
(Most) convincing to us are the facts collected ... by the Gambling Study Commission of New Jersey set up by legislative action in April 1972.
The majority report concluded that the following benefits would result from legalized gambling: "realistic recognition of the public's gambling propensities ... elimination of the hypocrisy and most of the corruption which the anti-gambling laws foster ... a favorable economic impact, with upgrading of working conditions, by increasing and attracting additional tourist patronage and spending ... and substantial public revenues may be anticipated through taxation of legal gambling. It would be a mistake, however, to approach legalization with maximization of revenue as a major goal.''
The study also confronted the moral issue and concluded:
"With churches running bingo games and the governor advertising the lottery, this state has long moved away from the concept that it is morally or ethically wrong to gamble.''
Those statements are not propaganda put out by pro-casino forces but the conclusions of a fact-finding group that investigated all phases of gambling.
We think they are compelling reasons for voting "yes'' to casino gambling.
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/columns/051903NEWEDIT1.html
Casino gambling has been pictured as the only thing that can save Atlantic City and as an invitation for organized crime to take over New Jersey. It is neither.
Instead, it is the best potential answer to a complex set of sociological and economic problems.
Atlantic City does stand to gain ... primarily through stimulation of a lagging economy. Jobs would be provided and capital investment in new hotels would be a certainty. As entertainment, casinos would lure tourists from throughout the East, spreading indirect economic benefits elsewhere in the state.
No one is proposing an East Coast version of raucous Las Vegas. Instead, a sedate atmosphere like that provided by casinos in the Caribbean and Europe is envisioned.
Those places have operated free of organized crime and scandal and have set an example that Atlantic City and New Jersey can follow.
(Most) convincing to us are the facts collected ... by the Gambling Study Commission of New Jersey set up by legislative action in April 1972.
The majority report concluded that the following benefits would result from legalized gambling: "realistic recognition of the public's gambling propensities ... elimination of the hypocrisy and most of the corruption which the anti-gambling laws foster ... a favorable economic impact, with upgrading of working conditions, by increasing and attracting additional tourist patronage and spending ... and substantial public revenues may be anticipated through taxation of legal gambling. It would be a mistake, however, to approach legalization with maximization of revenue as a major goal.''
The study also confronted the moral issue and concluded:
"With churches running bingo games and the governor advertising the lottery, this state has long moved away from the concept that it is morally or ethically wrong to gamble.''
Those statements are not propaganda put out by pro-casino forces but the conclusions of a fact-finding group that investigated all phases of gambling.
We think they are compelling reasons for voting "yes'' to casino gambling.
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/columns/051903NEWEDIT1.html
