While gambling addiction can be a social justice reason for some to ban gambling, the economic evidence suggests that the social and economic costs of gambling are $3 to the taxpayers for every $1 in benefits

State-sponsored gambling produces no product, no new wealth, and so it makes no genuine contribution to economic development

A study in Illinois in the mid-1990s found that 65 percent of businesses were hurt by the proximity of gambling

If gambling were banned, those social costs would drop, tax revenues from consumer goods would increase, and money would be pumped into the productive economic sector

Crime goes up 10 percent due to the gambling by the third year after racinos or slot machines are open, and then it continues upward after that

The common mistake that business people make is they're going to get drive-by business...Only gas stations are helped

Generally, traditional businesses were slow to recognize the way in which legalized gambling captured dollars from across the entire spectrum of the various consumer markets, but now they know