Slot Machines Affect Structure (Part II)

With slot machines coming to Pennsylvania, much research is being done to figure out how other areas handled the incoming slot machines and what they did to fix any problems they ran into.

Las Vegas, obviously the largest slot machine playground in the country, legalized gambling in 1931. In 1940, the population of Las Vegas was 8,422 – by 2005, it had grown to 575,973. They were bringing in more than $1 billion a year in slot machine and gaming revenue by 1977 alone. They are now bringing in over $5 billion a year. Not only did they bring in slot machines, but with it came an influx in construction. Condos, casinos, you name it, they all followed the slot machines. But not all of what followed the slot machines was good; some of it was not so good. There was corruption, crime, mafia, etc. that all followed the slot machines to Vegas, but the town turned it around, and now it is as much a gamblers paradise as it is a family vacation town.

Atlantic City is another good example of bringing slot machines to town. They legalized gambling in order to revitalize their urban areas, and in 1978 the first casino came to town. It was always a vacation resort, had been since the late 1800’s, but now people had another reason to come visit – slot machines. In 1978, Atlantic City had roughly 700,000 visitors. They now have more than 33 million visitors a year. They also had a tax base of roughly $316 million in 1976 – and now it is more than $7 billion. One of the biggest differences however, between Vegas and AC, is that Vegas has become a large town surrounded by other successful towns; AC is surrounded by slums.

If Pennsylvania hopes to become one of these success stories with their slot machines, they need to study very hard, for these two seemingly did everything right.

Next time: Local effects

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