Would Re-Criminalizing U.S. Gambling Pump-Prime the Economy and Could U.S. Gambling Facilities Be Transformed into Educational and High-Tech Facilities?: Will the Legal Discovery of Gambling Companies' Secrets Confirm Research Issues?

Economists and sociologists noted that the economic justifications for decriminalized gambling such as claims of new jobs, public revenues, and business development were the same types of arguments that Lincoln decried as being utilized to justify slavery in the 1800s, and which could still be utilized to justify decriminalizing illegal drugs in the present era. ... Thereafter, as pro-gambling interests returned to Nebraska, they were repeatedly rebuffed by the academic community, which was exemplified in one instance by 40 economists publicly rejecting new gambling proposals that would "cannibalize" the consumer economy. ... To conceptualize the socio-economic impacts of decriminalized gambling, it is beneficial to illustrate or visualize the gambling industry's identified "feeder markets" for a particular gambling facility, such as a casino. ... The secondary "feeder market" is typically a 100-mile radius around the casino and can include a quasi-tourist market -- although a gambling tourist should not be defined as a pre-existing tourist, but a new tourist from out-of-state who would not otherwise cross the state line if not for the gambling facility. ... If pro-gambling interests can focus the geographic scope of any study to within a mile or a few miles of the gambling activity, such as a casino, the limited scope generally influences the results to reflect favorably on economic and crime statistics. ... Contradicted and embarrassed by their own "feeder market" analyses, after the mid-1990s it became increasingly difficult to find gambling interests that publicly identified their feeder markets. ...published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe