Study says casino would drain cash from region

Monday, Nov. 13, 2000 | 10:47 a.m.

KENOSHA, Wis. - A proposed casino would drain about $221 million a year from the regional economy, according to a study commissioned by the casino's opponents.

The Menominee Nation's casino, planned for the Dairyland Greyhound Park, will derive only 10 percent of its revenue from people outside the region, while 90 percent of the money will come from residents in the surrounding eight-county area, which includes Kenosha, Racine, Walworth, Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington and Lake (Ill.) counties, according to the study.

The Kenosha Coalition Against Legalized Gambling paid $2,000 to William N. Thompson, a professor of public administration at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, to complete the study.

Earlier this fall, Thompson developed an analysis with similar findings for opponents of the Ho Chunk tribe's proposed casino in La Crosse.

Thompson's study concludes that given the imbalance of spending, social costs of compulsive gambling and crime fostered by the casino and the tribe's plans to remove up to 70 percent of profits from the region, the project will create a drag on the regional economy, not the economic boost that casino proponents have suggested.

The professor's study is based in part on numbers developed by Crowe Chizek and Co., an Indianapolis consulting firm hired by the city in 1998 to research the economic and social effects of casino gambling in Kenosha. Thompson forecasts an annual draw on the region of $221,967,578.

Thompson also has done research work on behalf of other tribes, showing the positive economic benefits of casinos where the majority of revenue would come from outside the region where a casino was located.

The Menominee want permission from the U.S. Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Indian Affairs to place the Kenosha property in trust, a condition necessary to obtain a gambling license because the casino must be on tribal land. Existing contracts between the tribe, the city and Kenosha County will expire if BIA and full state approval is not obtained by Dec. 31.