It's a Gamble

What with Donald Trump suddenly so very visible in the Media, Brigitte got to wondering just where gambling is classified in the U.S. economy and, furthermore, just how big it actually is. An earlier post here, measuring the advertising industry as percentage of Gross Domestic Product was in the background of this question. How does the gaming “industry” compare to advertising? No doubt, to be sure, matters of chance were on her mind too—in view of the rather awkward fact that she managed to break an arm when, accidentally, slipping as she got out of the shower…

Well, gambling is part of Amusement, Gambling, and Recreation Industries (NAICS 713), specifically NAICS 7132, Gambling Industries. As best as I can determine, the industry’s revenues in 2013 were a shade over $33 billion, amounting to 0.2 percent of GDP in that year. Advertising, by contrast, was around 1.03 percent. Advertising is barely visible—and gambling is too small to see.

But if you go to Atlantic City and stand before the Trump Taj Mahal, especially when it’s lit up for the night, you get an altogether wrong impression of gambling’s importance—or Donald Trump’s as a presidential candidate. To be sure, if Trump triumphs, in both of his ventures—to get nominated or to rescue the Taj Mahal from bankruptcy— it will at least prove that our times are reaching the highest improbabilities even for a truly crazy state of the world. As for Brigitte, she’s got a few more  days before the present (sea-foam-green?) cast gives way to the (oyster-beige?) last one and the process of relearning to write with her right hand can be taken up in earnest…

A Small Down-Spiral Slide?

A story this morning (New York Times, “Starved Budgets Inspire New Look at Web Gambling”) suggested a slide down the spiral of social senescence ahead. That story also illuminates the oft-repeated problem of unanticipated consequences. One consequence of faith-based tax-cutting (as one might label it) is budget collapse. But while the right hand wants tax cuts, the population shakes its left fist when states or cities curtail or stop services. In consequence “novel” or “innovative” ways of raising revenues appear as pressures build. Gambling and fees are contenders. The first is regressive—because the poor gamble more. The second is arbitrary; it taps sub-groups of the population using some facility or consuming some category of services or products in order to fund the whole.

I liked what one of our Detroit mayors said when trying to defeat a casino measure a few years back. He suggested that we should legalize prostitution too. It might turn out to be even more popular than gambling, he said. And not least with convention visitors, I might add. The mayor eventually caved, alas, but he’d made a good point.

Give us this day our daily bread…and deliver us from “innovation.”