Connecticut Eyes Impact of Legal Gambling, Plans Expansion
For the first time in 10 years, the state of Connecticut is eyeing the impact legalized gambling has had on life there.
Estimates are that gaming is quite lucrative for the state. The Foxwoods Resort Casino and the Mohegan Sun casino alone provide about $445 million into the state's coffers each year.
The last study sanctioned by the state cost about $400,000, and it now will cost more than $700,000 to hire experts to gauge "the good, the bad and the ugly" of legalized gambling, experts said.
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New Studies
During the 1970s and 1980s, the legislature conducted gambling studies every five years. The last study was done in the mid-1990s and published in 1997, only a few years after Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun had opened."The casinos over the last five to 10 years have been a stable segment of the state budget," said Robert Genuario, Gov. M. Jodi Rell's budget director.
The two-year state budget approved last week by the General Assembly includes $700,000 for the Division of Special Revenue to hire a contractor for the study. The overall state budget is $36 billion.
Division spokesman Paul Bernstein said the goal is to seek bids next month for the study, and to have the study underway within six months.
"We're hopeful to have a contract approved and in place so work can begin around the first of the year," said Bernstein. "We are planning on allowing the firm probably up to a year."
The study is to be designed to find out how the "thriving" legalized gambling industry affects not only the state's economy, but people and social services, through the revenues it provides to the government, Bernstein said.
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