Las Vegas and Houston: Global Command Centers in the Sun Belt

Apart from their notoriously hot summers, Las Vegas, Nevada and Houston, Texas appear to have little in common. Upon further scrutiny, however, the two cities have followed strikingly parallel trajectories. As a hub of commercial gaming today, Las Vegas faces challenges comparable to the obstacles Houston encountered in the 1970s and 1980s as a hub of oil and energy. The story of Houston since this downtime reflects a stunning transformation into a modern-day international city, and one that both parallels and portends a new Las Vegas. In this article, we argue that Houston provides a viable model for Las Vegas as a “global command center” of a major international industry – and that in many ways Las Vegas is already following this path

Follow the Money: Gambling, Ethics, and Subpoenas

Since the Watergate era, when investigative reporters were advised to "follow the money" to find the facts, this principle has been reaffirmed several times as the mechanism for the fourth estate to scourge crime and corruption from government, lobbying activities, and the political process (Bernstein and Woodward 1975, 35). ... In 1995 in Virginia, a state with only some charitable gambling and a recently enacted lottery, casino proponents hired 48 lobbyists who represented practically every lobbying firm in the state capital in an attempt to prohibit any antigambling lobbyists from competing. ... The unlimited amounts of money available to the gambling industry would also corrupt the governmental system according to Nat Helms, a former high-ranking member of the gambling industry's 1994 campaign that brought video gambling machines to Missouri. ... Under the dominant influence of legislation proposed and even drafted by the gambling interests, during the 1980s and 1990s states not only legalized gambling activities but also legislated special economic and liability protections for the gambling industry that were unavailable to other businesses. ... The AGA's chairman, Frank Fahrenkopf, in addressing gambling industry leaders, has constantly extolled the political clout of the "moral opponents" of gambling and linked the NCALG to the Christian Coalition in an effort to raise millions of dollars for the AGA (which has approximately a $4.6 million budget, compared to just over$ 100,000 for the NCALG). ... With Gambling Study on Table, Las Vegas Hedging Early.published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

Would Re-Criminalizing U.S. Gambling Pump-Prime the Economy and Could U.S. Gambling Facilities Be Transformed into Educational and High-Tech Facilities?: Will the Legal Discovery of Gambling Companies' Secrets Confirm Research Issues?

Economists and sociologists noted that the economic justifications for decriminalized gambling such as claims of new jobs, public revenues, and business development were the same types of arguments that Lincoln decried as being utilized to justify slavery in the 1800s, and which could still be utilized to justify decriminalizing illegal drugs in the present era. ... Thereafter, as pro-gambling interests returned to Nebraska, they were repeatedly rebuffed by the academic community, which was exemplified in one instance by 40 economists publicly rejecting new gambling proposals that would "cannibalize" the consumer economy. ... To conceptualize the socio-economic impacts of decriminalized gambling, it is beneficial to illustrate or visualize the gambling industry's identified "feeder markets" for a particular gambling facility, such as a casino. ... The secondary "feeder market" is typically a 100-mile radius around the casino and can include a quasi-tourist market -- although a gambling tourist should not be defined as a pre-existing tourist, but a new tourist from out-of-state who would not otherwise cross the state line if not for the gambling facility. ... If pro-gambling interests can focus the geographic scope of any study to within a mile or a few miles of the gambling activity, such as a casino, the limited scope generally influences the results to reflect favorably on economic and crime statistics. ... Contradicted and embarrassed by their own "feeder market" analyses, after the mid-1990s it became increasingly difficult to find gambling interests that publicly identified their feeder markets. ...published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

What Happened to Atlantic City’s Gaming Volume?

Atlantic City casinos were hit by the 2007-2009 recession and the addition of legalized gaming in Pennsylvania at about the same time. Results of this study show the opening of the first three Pennsylvania casinos significantly decreased slot coin-in in Atlantic City while the legalization of table games and the opening of the fourth casino significantly decreased table games drop. After taking this into account, the recession had no significant effect on Atlantic City casino volume. To counteract decreased volumes, casino management needs to understand how much gaming volume they are losing to competition and how much to the recession

Session 3-3-B: The interplay between law, development and spillover effects of casino gaming: Theory and the Asian evidences

Taking into consideration of the unique features and practice of casino gaming, the significance of law in the development of this industry, and the onging interactions between law, the industry’s succeeding performance and its spillover effects are generalized and illustrated in this paper. Based on the rationales of law and economics, and the institutional approach to economic analysis, a functional model is constructed to depict the related interplaying forces and the development of casino gaming. In principle, it is shown that business scope and scale of casino gaming is largely defined by law on one hand, and the revisions of related regulations are interactively influenced by the industry’s performance and its spillover effects on the other hand. By compiling some related evidences from the major Asian casino jurisdictions (Macao, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea), it is revealed that the practice of casino gaming is indeed a combined dynamics of law and its spillover effects

A Virtual Pandora\u27s Box: What Cyberspace Gambling Prohibition Means to Terrestrial Casino Operators

Recently, there has been increased pressure on the U.S. Congress to act against Internet gambling. While it may be tempting for terrestrial casinos to watch idly as the federal government moves to eliminate a potential competitor, those in the business of gaming must be leery of any federal efforts to halt gambling online. In the final analysis, the same arguments to restrict consumer choice in cyberspace can be easily used against gambling in real casinos-a compelling reason for terrestrial gaming operators to forcefully oppose any federal restrictions on Americans\u27 rights to gamble

Influence of Personal Factors on Macau Residents\u27 Gaming Impact Perceptions

This paper explores the influence of personal factors on gaming impact perceptions using Macau, China as a case study. The objective is to examine how residents\u27 gaming perceptions were affected by (1) personal benefits received from gaming; (2) length of residence; and (3) demographic characteristics. The study also aims to assess the relative magnitude of influence exerted by each variable on gaming impact perceptions. All personal factors were found to contribute to differences in gaming impact perceptions among sub-groups of respondents. Regression analyses revealed that age, education and residence status had influence on gaming impact perceptions. Findings support that the theory of social exchange is at play in the shaping of perceptions of gaming impact among Macau residents

The Determinant of Money Laundering: Evidence from Italian Regions

Following the INTERPOL’s definition, money laundering is: “any act or attempted act to conceal or disguise the identity of illegally obtained proceeds so that they appear to have originated from legitimate sources”. Illegally obtained funds are laundered and moved around the world using front companies, intermediaries and other money transmitters. In this way, the illegal funds remain hidden and are integrated into the legal economy. Such type of crime undermines financial institutions’ and jurisdictions’ reputation, compromises investors’ trust in them, and therefore weakens the entire financial system. By using annual data for the Italian regions (NUTS-2) over the period 2008 to 2015, this work aims to investigate the determinants of money laundering in Italy. Given the high heterogeneity in terms of economic and institutional characteristics, as well as for the activity of organized crime in financial-related activities, Italy is a compelling case study. Our main findings reveal that in most of the Italian regions enforcement activities do exert significant deterrence on criminal behaviors: a negative relationship between enforcement and illegal trafficking of waste can be identified only for very high levels of enforcement efforts. Moreover, we find that the major determinants influencing the rate of money laundering differ between northern-central and southern regions, confirming the existence of a regional dualism. In particular, while in the northern-central area the crime rate is positively related to the level of corruption, the incidence of mafia-type crimes and negatively to the education attainment, in the southern regions money laundering is positively related to the size of the gaming and gambling sector