What not to do with your gambling revenue: the failure of Tunica, Mississippi

[Indy Texas 🇺🇦🇵🇸]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/2015/07/11/an-opportunity-gamed-away/?tid=HP_more

In the early '90s, Mississippi liberalized its gambling laws. Proponents said it would bring jobs, investment, and tax dollars to some of the poorest counties in one of the poorest states in America.

Nearly two decades later, the Mississippi Delta region has little to show for these efforts. The casinos never fully recovered from the 2008 recession; and tax revenue that could have been used to invest in education, healthcare and infrastructure was instead used on tax cuts for the wealthy and on perks for government employees.

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[Indy Texas 🇺🇦🇵🇸]

To be fair, Tunica's pretty cool if you're into gambling. It's generally rated as the 4th best gambling city in America (behknd LV, AC, and Reno). Of course when I say Tunica, I mean the area miles outside of town that has like 10 casinos and literally nothing else.

Sure is a shame it hasn't helped the actual city much though.

How would Tunica be a better place to gamble than, say, Biloxi/Gulfport, which has more or less the same quantity/quality of casinos, but with the added benefit of the beach and being not too far from New Orleans?