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January 10, 2025 4 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Six, twenty two, our time here on Houston's Morning News. Right.
I don't know if you're a rambling gambling man or not,
Derrick Cohen, but we seem to have this discussion all
the time. Do we want to allow gambling expansion in
Texas or not? I know the people next door in
Louisiana who are making a lot of money from it,
they don't want us to do it, and they spend
a lot of money lobbying the state legislature to make

(00:21):
sure we don't.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
That's true, Jimmy, We actually do see that it's kind
of a bootleggers and Baptist arrangement in that way.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Well, you've done sort of a I guess a cost
analysis both on an economic and a social implication basis.
What did you find at the Texas Public Policy Foundation?

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Absolutely, and so we found that it's actually, you know,
both sides.

Speaker 4 (00:45):
Of the equation.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Both the costs and the benefits are very stark and
very identifiable, and so it really comes down to the
legislature to determine whether they want to make this trade off.
So we found, basically extrapolating out Ohio's experience with a
casino expansion, that Texas, if they were to follow the
same model, would appreciate about eight hundred and thirty four

(01:07):
million a year in tax revenue. Now that's not casino
gambling revenue that would actually be far larger, but in
what the state would take in would be an eight
hundred and thirty four million. Unfortunately, on the other side,
we would also have a large expansion on people who
have really really pronounced gambling problems. You know, we calculated
that the problem gamblers, which will make about three percent

(01:27):
of the adult population, that'd be about six hundred and
forty two thousand adult Texans.

Speaker 4 (01:32):
Those are people with very, very severe gambling problems.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Okay, are these people though that already have a severe
gambling problem and they're just the only difference is is
now they're going to exercise it in Texas versus doing
it online or in Louisiana.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Well, that's an interesting question, Jimmy, because we the way
we looked at this is that we looked at the
extrapolation from data that was found in Ohio. Now, in
Ohio passed their gambling INITIE in two thousand and nine
and then put it into place in twenty twelve. That
first year they actually established a baseline of how much
problem gambling and disordered gambling of all levels. To be honest,
they actually experienced and so what they saw, and here's

(02:09):
the kind of shocking part is that each category of
disordered gambler problem gambler, that most terminal serious category, that
went up sevenfold and ten.

Speaker 4 (02:19):
Years between twenty twelve and twenty twenty two.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Moderate risk gambling went up about sixfold, Low risk gambling
went up about twofold. And while to be fair, those
who have no problem gambling, the non problem gamblers did
go up ten percent. All those increases cannibalized from the
people that did not gamble.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Here's the bottom line to me anyway, and this is
I realized this is a very libertarian approach. And I
don't know how you feel about, you know, people in
their personal issues. We allow people to smoke, we allow
people to drink, We allow people to do a lot
of things that are potentially addictive. But the question becomes,
what sort of a toll does it take on the
rest of society that doesn't have the problem. In other words,

(02:56):
to the problem gambler. Is he going on resort potentially
to stealing? Is it going to lead to an increase
in crime for the rest of us. Is there beening
studied done on that?

Speaker 3 (03:07):
Yes, actually there has, discreetly in Atlantic City, discreetly in
Wisconsin when they expanded tribal casinos, and also a nationwide
one over the course of the basically the seventies to
the eighties, which is when we saw most of the casino.

Speaker 4 (03:23):
Proliferation in the States.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Each one has identified an increase in crime specifically geolocated
to the casinos. So you know, for example, Atlantic City,
they found that when the casino enterprises started going up there,
crime not only increased in that area, but also in
surrounding areas, and that the surrounding areas were able to
mitigate some of that crime by you know, putting money
in police resources, and you know, if they didn't really

(03:48):
have a direct highway.

Speaker 4 (03:49):
They didn't experience the crime increase as much.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
But all that to say is that these are you know,
at least attenuably tied the casino expansion got.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
You, okay, just just yep, from your own personal point
of view and knowing what you don't about the state
legislature because you're located in Austin, do you think that
we will ever pass state wide gambling here in Texas.
To be honest with Jimmy, I can't really say.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
I do know that the Lieutenant governor is pretty bearish
on the prospect, not only because his membership.

Speaker 4 (04:20):
I don't think is there either. You know, I know
that in the House.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
You know it comes up every now and again, but
they struggled clearing the threshold for the constitutional amendment last year,
and so obviously it'll need that constitutional amendment to enable
either sports betting or casino gambling, and I just don't
think the votes are there in either chamber at the
moment now. In the future, obviously that's subject to change,
but currently it's statutorily prohibited.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Got you all right, Derek Cohen, thank you appreciate it.
Chief Research Officer at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Derek
Cohen
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