One of the people cited in an April 24, 2019, Courier article stated casinos were not a good source of tax revenue and although casinos created a significant number of jobs, there was a two percent decline in morality, including leading to social ills such as suicide, violent crime, auto theft and bankruptcy.
I thought that was a typo at first. After all, how do you quantify morality… how do you measure it? But then I looked at all the ills that were listed and realized that he was serious, but likely had twisted the original information, which was supposed to be from a 2012 Washington Post article.
Well, I found that 2012 article and the two percent decline was in mortality, not morality:
“A study by Maryland’s William Evans and Julie Topoleski that focused on Indian casinos found that they created a significant number of jobs. The ratio of jobs available to adults increased, on average, by 5 percent. This in turn lead (sic) to a 2 percent decline in mortality, as residents’ economic conditions improved.”
In other words, the subjects in the study lived longer because they had more jobs available.