Monday, September 25, 2006

If you want to see an ex ample of how quickly this region can change, look
at the articles on this page about gambling. Staff writer Tom Dochat
explains that the approval process for lucrative gaming licenses is hotter
than the handle of a 25-cent one-armed bandit on a Saturday night. Teams of
state investigators have been traveling worldwide to make sure that the
people seeking licenses are as squeaky clean as possible. So much money will
be involved that you have to hope these regulators will be watched closely,
too. In other words, the watchdogs will need watchdogs. Another story is
about how Penn National Gaming's operations in Mississippi weathered one of
the worst hurricane seasons in U.S. history. The company's casinos have been
rebuilt and most of the staff is back at work. Part of that rapid response
was made possible by Mississippi officials who changed laws to make gambling
even more lucrative in the state. Nothing like a natural disaster that
cripples your economy to shake out some business-friendly laws. In
Mississippi's case, gambling had been limited to casinos on the water. Now
it is possible to have them on land. As we also learned last week about West
Virginia, officials there are expecting their own tidal wave of sorts, which
is why they might expand that state's gambling laws so they don't lose too
many customers to Pennsylvania. Penn National intends to have slot machines
at its racetrack in Grantville and is betting that it gets approvals this
week, having already demolished old buildings to make way for new ones.

If they could go into a hurricane-ravaged area -- where everyone was looking
for contractors and virtually all locals were sleeping in trailers for
months -- and rebuild a casino in less than a year, imagine how quickly the
landscape could change around here.

Assuming the company gets its conditional license this week, it expects to
be open by 2008. That's just over a year from now.

I like talking with people about what gambling will mean to this region.
Some people have been seeing opportunities for a while -- we reported nearly
two years ago about land speculation around Grantville. Others see the
potential for crime, drugs and other problems that follow dreams of easy
money.

For years, there has been talk about hotels near the state Farm Show Complex
off Cameron Street and Interstate 81. I'm not sure that expos, craft fairs
and special events make such ventures a sure thing. But if you have a casino
a few exits down the interstate, you might not have many worries about
booking rooms.

I don't know if gambling will be good for this area or awful. I do know that
once a license is approved for a casino in Grantville, the region will be
transformed.