Mr. Ehrisman mentions with dismay Yankton’s proposal to become a riverside Deadwood by building the “Port Yankton” casino on the Missouri River downtown.
Expanding gambling options in South Dakota is NOT the answer. The irony is that they would only be pulling gamblers from Fort Randall and Nebraska Indian Casinos, they would not be creating any new clientele.
Oh, and Gambling SUCKS and is a poor way to fund government [Scott Ehrisman, “Expanding Gambling in SD Is NOT the Solution to Economic Development,” South DaCola, 2017.03.28].
In FY 2015, South Dakotans spent $200 per person on gambling, mostly on video lottery. Someone must have spent $400, because I spent nothing. I have never plunked money into a video lottery machine, poker game, or scratch ticket. On the few occasions when I’ve visited a South Dakota casino, either out of curiosity or for a cheap motel room, I’ve felt I’m looking at some pale imitation of excitement and ecstasy that may exist solely in our imaginations and our movies. They feel no more real than the billboards, whose posed imagery never overcome my nagging mathematical knowledge that the casino exists to take our money.
In inflation-adjusted dollars, casino gambling revenue to state and local governments since 2008 has declined in “older” casino states (the least decline happened in South Dakota!) and increased only in “newer” casino states. Those figures suggest that newer entrants into the gambling enjoy short-term growth that they then lose when their novelty wears off. There’s debate over whether millennials are inclined to gamble at casinos, but casinos generally get the biggest chunk of their revenue from folks 55 and over. That age cohort’s inclination to gamble is dampened significantly by the 2008 recession’s bite out of their retirement savings. (The coming Trump recession could throw more cold water on the gambling urge.)
Yankton publisher and former legislator Bernie Hunhoff is advocating this casino plan. Mr. Ehrisman sees Bernie’s backing as another sign of Democratic surrender to Republican thinking. Yet in his support of the Port Yankton project, Hunhoff offers a critique of the Republican “jobs, jobs, jobs” mindset:
Hunhoff told the audience that, for a number of years, there had been pressure in Pierre to begin focusing on quality-of-life issues.
“For all the 14 years I was in Pierre, we’ve been pushing the Governor’s Office of Economic Development and our economic developers statewide to start focusing on quality of life,” Hunhoff said. “It’s always about job creation, job creation, job creation — and there was a time for that. But at some point, we went over the edge. We had plenty of jobs, we needed better jobs and we needed workers to do those jobs. On the state level, they were slow to come to that realization. When YAPG came and said, ‘Let’s do something that really affects quality of life in Yankton,’ how could you say no?” [Rob Nielsen, “Port Yankton,” Yankton Press & Dakotan, 2017.03.09]
Hunhoff makes a good point about the narrowness of the Janklow/Rounds/Daugaard approach to economic development. The Hagen/Benda/Costello GOEDs figured that if we just talk to corporate cronies, hand out some tax breaks and subsidies, and get them to hire more people, quality of life would take care of itself. Evidently, the state’s economic deve
However, that casinos enhance the quality of life is a dubious proposition for sociologists and theologians. If casinos guaranteed improvements in the quality of life, a lot more of our Lakota neighbors would have nice houses, schools, parks, and maybe shiny new Escalades (if that’s how you define “quality of life”).
If Yankton can turn a casino into something bigger, a destination that gives gamblers and non-gamblers alike reasons to come recreate on the waterfront, then hoo-rah! But Port Yankton needs to offer more than just another dreary place where lonely older folks push buttons like rats in cages.
Really? A grand plan to poach what little extra revenue they can from the Indian casino and the corner video lottery places. This is really what SD has become. Split the pie so many ways that nobody gets much of anything. And make sure that gamblers have no shortage of places to fritter away their social security checks or paychecks. SD should be finding ways for people to make more money – not lose more money.
Cory, I would agree with you and Scott about gambling if we were talking about bringing the first 500 machines to South Dakota — but there are now some 7,000 machines in casinos across the state and another 9,000 in video lottery establishments — so at this point we’re just asking whether Yankton could please have the LAST 500 machines — so we could create a convention and entertainment attraction that would complement our lake, river and outdoor recreation.
We get some one million visitors a year, but Yankton has had little luck keeping them in town because we don’t have the entertainment amenities. We would agree that a casino alone is not a solution … but a feasibility study shows that it would be successful and provide revenues for OTHER amenities that would not only attract visitors and keep them here but also improve the quality of life for full-time residents. Many of our visitors would come from Iowa and Nebraska, as they do now.
Our proposal is very unique. We want just a single license for maybe 500 machines/10 tables and the license would be held by a non-profit. However, the operator/developer of the casino would be a for-profit. Like Deadwood, the local community would benefit from gaming taxes and the non-profit would also get a share of revenues to be used for historic preservation (badly needed as in Deadwood) and other quality of life projects.
I don’t like gaming either, but at this point being against it is like trying to run a restaurant without sugar and butter. You need all the tools, especially in a city of 15,000 that isn’t on an interstate, doesn’t have a public university and research parks, doesn’t have Mount Rushmore or the State Fair.
We call ourselves a tourist community but our convention facilities are so limited right now that we barely were able to host the Democratic convention a few years ago — and when you aren’t big enough to host the South Dakota Democratic Convention then you know you’ve got to grow.
This is far from the only thing Yankton is doing — we’re trying to become an entrepreneurial hub through Onward Yankton. The community is finishing a $5 million restoration of an amazing old building as the Mead Museum. Numerous other projects are happening. But all of them require money, and Port Yankton could help quite a lot. But we’ll need the help of our fellow South Dakotans to get this done.
Like They could have put a casino on I 90 and I 29 to but look where that went, over to Iowa and Sioux Falls get the addiction.Like Wyatt earp was asked about the money anda dirty conscience.He said already got a guilty conscience might as well have the money to.
Yesterday I drove through Lower Brule and Ft. Thompson. Had some time on my hands and it’s a beautiful drive from Pierre to Lower Brule. The casino in Lower Brule is the most run-down thing I’ve ever seen. No glitz and glamour there. No neon lights. No cars in the parking lot – except for the wrecked Oldsmobile up on blocks. Really! I knew where the casino was from years ago, but I had to take a roundabout way there because there aren’t even much for signs pointing you to it. I didn’t go in.
The casino in Ft. Thompson was marginally better, but not by much. I think the construction of the Ft. Thompson casino is just more resistant to decay than that of Lower Brule. Not may cars at the Ft. Thompson casino either. I didn’t go in.
I suspect that these casinos brought needed revenue to their communities when they were new, but barely pay their own bills now.
At the same time Yankton wants its new casino, the folks in Pierre fight tooth and nail against the Indians putting a casino along I-90 or on the edge of Sioux Falls where they could actually make some bank. Of course, if it’s not the Indians asking then Pierre is a lot more receptive – so Yankton will probably get what they want – far from Deadwood.
I posted this same comment when Scott E. posted his blog entry:
Operating a casino as a nonprofit might not fly with the IRS. See this article about Iowa’s Prairie Meadows, one of only two nonprofit-operated casinos in the US:
https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2016/05/25/iowa-casinos-nonprofit-status-may-hang-400-year-old-law/
casinos use up wealth, they do not create wealth.
I’m not a big gambler myself, but I have been to a few casinos here and there. Sometimes it’s fun, sometimes it’s a waste of money and free time. I don’t think it is any “better” or “worse” than any other ways that most of us spend our cash or our recreation time. I have friends that go to the movies once or twice a month That’s not free. I have friends that dine out at restaurants every week. Also not free.
I have friends who buy expensive wine and I have friends who buy cheap beer. Most likely, we all spend more than $200 per year on some of the random things we enjoy, and other people might not think whatever it is we are doing is a smart or productive way to spend our money, but that’s the beauty of autonomy. Isn’t it great being an adult and doing whatever you want with your time and money, so long as you aren’t hurting somebody else?
It would be close-minded of me to suggest that people who go to musicals are wasting their time and money just because I don’t enjoy musicals. It would be silly to suggest that people who spend $100 to style their hair are wasting their money because my haircut runs about $12 at great clips.
We live in the future, guys. If somebody is bored and has some cash to burn, they can find a million things to do, and as long as nobody gets hurt, we should let that person burn that cash. It’s their right to do so. I buy cheap clothes. Some people buy expensive clothes. I read books. Some people watch TV. I play video games. Some people golf. Everything we do is a waste of time and money to somebody else. If an open market allows a casino to make enough profit to keep the doors open, obviously the public is voting with their dollars that they want that entertainment option to exist, and just because some of us don’t enjoy that type of recreation doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be available.
I hate the taste of seafood and I think it is usually over-priced, but Red Lobster is still around. We all think our neighbors are frivolous about something, but diversity is the flavor of life. Let people be already. We’re all just here for a few laps around the sun and then we’re gone anyway. If I leave other people alone and let them do their own thing, I would hope they would do the same for me. If “the people” think there are too many casinos, some will fail to make a profit and will close, and the natural selection of the economy will do its job.
I just spent seven minutes writing this comment. I also spent $70 this month for internet access to allow me to read this post and comment on it. A lot of people would say that was seven minutes wasted, and a waste of the pro-rata amount of my hard-earned money it cost to access this site and comment. Maybe they are right. Maybe they aren’t. It’s my time and my money, though, so go fly a kite (which, by the way, is as boring and pointless as anything I can imagine, but some people like it).
Thoughtful post Ryan – thanks! By the way, you must be a fast writer if that only took you 7 minutes. It would have taken me at least an hour to attempt to come up with such an eloquent and wise comment.
Ryan says “Isn’t it great being an adult and doing whatever you want with your time and money, so long as you aren’t hurting somebody else?”
That is the crux of the issue isn’t it? There are too many people addicted to gambling that are hurting themselves, their loved ones and other people. I’ve seen gambling addiction result in bankruptcy, broken marriages and suicide. Let’s not pretend that this is the same thing as choosing to go out to eat or buying clothes. Gambling addicts don’t choose to spend all of their money in the casinos any more than a drug addict chooses to be a junky.
As Bernie says, the genie may be out of the bottle, but let’s not pretend that this is an industry without large societal negative impacts. The casino industry, much like the beer and liquor industry, does not typically pay for these societal costs. The taxpayers, families and communities have to pay for these costs.
Maybe Bernie’s point is that we have the costs so we may as well have the income to offset the costs and better the community. Moses’ Wyatt Earp quote is South Dakota today: We have the guilt of video lottery and Deadwood and Indian gaming, we may as well have the money.
Before there was Deadwood gambling and Indian casinos, cash bingo’s were the rage off and on the reservation.
As part of owner of a bingo on the Pine Ridge reservation I always viewed it is as strictly adult entertainment.
When challenged about the morality of gambling, my answer was always the same. If we didn’t have bingo on the reservation players would travel to Rapid City for the Knights of Columbus or Trea Bingo.
In days long past, Indian hand games were popular and a fair amount of money gambled, players were both Indian and non-Indian and often came from far away, much like the bingo games. Bingo replaced the hand games although some reservations try to preserve them.
The part I personally enjoyed with bingo was the sense of community that we promoted, people not only had a chance to win money they were able to get together in a safe social setting.
As Ryan says, things come and go and we forget they ever existed. Indian bingo parlors soon gave way to the ever expanding casinos on reservations.
Down in the South Central part of the state, there have been plans to build a new casino right on the West edge of Winner. The Rosebud Sioux Tribe has some land outside city limits, sitting behind the current West Haven Trailer Court and an old hotel. There have been some meetings in town regarding this potential new casino, but I haven’t been able to find much information on Google beyond a Facebook post and a PDF copy of the Sicangu Sun Times from Nov-Dec 2013.
The Winner housing community used to have a bingo hall back in the day until it burned down. The burnt out building remained for years before it was finally torn down.
I agree with Darin Larson that when people make poor decisions, sometimes their friends, families, or society pays a price. I agree that addiction is a terrible thing and the victims of addiction are often not making well-thought-out decisions when they feed their addictions. I have seen it personally. My mother was addicted to “retail therapy” and filed bankruptcy when all of her shopping-on-credit caught up with her. Not good – agreed completely.
I don’t agree, however, with using the fact that some people make poor decisions (or involuntary decisions, if you subscribe to the idea that addicts aren’t in control of their actions) as a policy argument to limit what responsible adults should be able to do with their time and money, or where they do it.
I also don’t agree with blaming a casino for a gambling addict’s choices. I don’t blame chemistry for a meth addict’s choices, either. I don’t blame Wal-mart for the clearance sales that my mother couldn’t ignore. Real life can be hard sometimes, and we all have to (and get to) decide how we handle this crazy life that none of us volunteered for and none of us really understands. I have to (and get to) decide whether to save my money or spend it, just like everyone else. I have to (and get to) decide whether I drink one beer or ten. It is up to me whether I eat junk food or a salad. We can’t blame the salt, fat, and sugar in the foods we eat for obesity, because that would be naive.
I understand that it is hard for some people to let the rest of the world live their own lives, but I still think we should. Some of us are stupid. Some of us are smart. Some of us have good genes. Some of us are doomed to live short lives due to hereditary conditions. Some of us are handsome, and some of us are ugly. Some of us have incredible good luck, and some of us can’t catch a break. This is life. Sure, we should treat each other equally in our actions, but we are not all the same. Not by a long shot. If you pretend we are, you are either pandering to a cause or you’re ignorant.
Protecting people from their poor choices, or bad luck, or hereditary susceptibility to addictive behavior, or whatever it is, should not come at the expense of other people’s freedoms. The upsides of autonomy are freedom and liberty. The downsides of autonomy are sometimes divorce, bankruptcy, and suicide. Call me crazy, but I think personal liberty is still a good thing, and rare enough that we shouldn’t take it for granted.
Instead of pounding sand down a rat hole, people would be wise to take Ryan’s words of wisdom and pound them into the heads of Dakota’s wingnut pols.
Mind yer own business and let other adults, especially women mind theirs.
I see iowa is copycatting Dakota’s stringent waiting periods for abortions with other unsavory hardships to force iowa women to heel like in South Disgusting.
A Republican was recently elected President by talking to the workers in America – workers whose story and purpose, which should be allied with what the Democratic Party is all about and not the Republican Party. In fact, former Vice President Biden said yesterday, ““This is the first campaign (2016) that I can recall where my party did not talk about what it always stood for, and that is how to maintain a burgeoning middle class.” But sadly, the Democratic Party was deaf to those concerns of the American worker and the American middle class in the last election cycle and now we are left with the empty promises of Trumpism.
Then just last year, Democrats in Pierre voted to increase a regressive sales tax claiming that it was for education, but already that exclusivity has been lost. Not to mention that a State Senate leader in the Democratic Party admitted just last year, too, in Sioux Falls at a Rotary meeting, that he votes for Republicans, too.
And now a good Democrat, a very good Democrat, is for casinos.
As Democrats, it is time for us all to ask, “What’s it all about, Alfie?”
Ryan, your libertarian ruminations say nothing about the public policy issue at hand, which is: Should state government allow casino gambling outside of Deadwood? Right now, the Indian casinos only have casino gambling because Deadwood has casino gambling, and the federal government says tribes can have what’s allowed in the state. But the state has always fought against tribes annexing land onto their reservations anywhere they could make real bank on a casino – like I-90 by Chamberlain (which would cut into Deadwood’s revenue) and near Sioux Falls (where lots of Deadwood’s customers live).
If Yankton is allowed to have casino gambling, then why not Chamberlain? Why not Sioux Falls? Why not Pierre? If the genie is out of the bottle – as Bernie argues, then why should Yankton get some exclusive privilege not allowed anywhere else in the state, off of the reservations?
And further, why should Yankton – a prosperous community – be allowed to put in a casino when tribes dealing with major poverty and social costs are denied their requests to build casinos near populated areas? Maybe the Yankton Sioux Tribe should ask to build a casino in Yankton where the city wants one – with proceeds to go to tribal services, and we’ll see how quickly that gets shot down by Pierre.
Short answer this time – yes, I think casinos should be allowed anywhere any other business can set up shop. Why not?
It appears to me that all our laws protecting people from themselves are silly and they came about because some confident idiot spoke up again again about some issue he has a personal distaste for until he convinced enough people that either “God” or “the children” would be negatively affected if we don’t ban whatever conduct that idiot didn’t like. People, generally speaking, are incredibly susceptible to influence, so we end up with ridiculously childish laws about everything because some crybaby doesn’t think his Nana should spend her retirement money at a blackjack table.
I feel like most of the adult population I come into contact with are a bunch of babies waiting for help to come around the corner and make things better because they can’t handle real life on their own. Help is not on the way. Grow up. If you don’t like something, avoid it, but leave the rest of us alone so we can exercise our personal rights to spend our short lives living the way we want.
I don’t believe in heaven, so this life is all I get – I’m sick of people telling me how to live it. Whoever believes in heaven, just wait patiently, you’ll get everything you’ve ever wanted after you’re gone, right? So leave people alone while we’re on Earth, it’s just a layover for you folks anyway.
Funny how some people are proud of the freedoms we have one day, and then they want to tell other people what they should or shouldn’t do the next.
Why not in deed, Watertown has a big old casino and has had it longer, much longer than Deadwood.
I have a brother who is addicted to gambling. He has a mental disability, and spends a large part of each paycheck on lottery tickets. If we are going to have a casino like this in Yankton, non-profit or otherwise, I would like to see part of the business plan include money to support those who are addicted to gambling. Yes, people should have the freedom to do what they choose, but when people become addicted to anything (drugs, alcohol, internet, whatever) it can become a big problem for them, their families, and the whole community. It should be a fairly simple thing to include a commitment by the owners and operators to somehow financially support counseling services for those addicted to gambling. Also, I would discourage using gambling machines that can be paid with a credit card because this has shown to be really dangerous even for people who aren’t addicted to gambling.
As a guy who wrote and directed a high school musical, I must reject Ryan’s analogy. Liking or not liking musical theater is simply a matter of taste. Liking gambling requires ignoring the objective fact that, over time, the house always wins and ignoring the genuine social problems that arise because of that exploitative industry.
I invite studies of the social and fiscal impacts of staging and attending musical theater.
Bernie’s model of capturing the last available licenses and incorporating them in a larger project—a convention center, lodging, entertainment, and not just another Stop-n-Rob—may be the least bad application of the gambling capacity we have available. Ideally, the gambling might jumpstart a project that could withstand the decline that seems to follow the implementation of gambling. Get people there with gambling, then give them other reasons to keep coming back.
Worth noting: Port Yankton requires a constitutional amendment, right? How inclined would the Legislature be to put this measure on the ballot next year?
Mr. H’s blogging at 22:16 is righter than right. Like video lottery, and pay day loan users, people who gamble in casinos beyond an occasional social outing for moderate fun are just destined to be fleeced by society due to their ignorance of math.
And I also, for another, would like to see a study of the social and fiscal impact of musical theater, although I would ask if any of you have or do one of these studies to please contrast the annoying musical theater to the more interesting comedic and dramatic versions. Musical theater should be mostly banned except for a couple of the classics which should never be performed more than once a generation in any given theater. South Pacific and Boots of Kinky excepted, of course.
Yankton would gain more tourist dollars with a legally operated bordello, all tastefully done of course.
Maybe they can cut a deal with Deadwood, Nick, for Deadwood to get it’s bordello back if Yankton gets gambling. Working together they can see to it that the tribes don’t get anything out of the deal.
Do you know who mostly gambles at the Indian casinos in Lower Brule and Fort Thompson? Indians.
Do you know who mostly gambles at the casinos in Deadwood? White people.
I expect you’re righter than right, Mr. C. I have been to both places and think both of our observations are accurate.
The Casino industry is quickly headed on a downward path. More Casinos are going to be closing in the coming years then are going to be opened. The largest casino company in the United States–Caesars Entertainment is currently in bankruptcy and has more debt then Detroit. South Dakota’s gaming commission is as corrupt as could possibly be. Yankton does not need to go down that path.