The hardworking staff at Campaign Outsider is the first to admit that our attention to the Bay State’s casino gambling rumpus has been more occasional than tenacious.
Perhaps because of that, we found this Christopher Caldwell piece in the current issue of the Weekly Standard very interesting.
Headline:
Deval Patrick’s Racino Problem
Why Massachusetts pols are addicted to gambling.
Two quotes of note:
#1
The best explanation for why gambling failed despite all the votes in favor of it, is that the Democrats in the state house needed gambling to fail and they needed to vote in favor of it.
They needed to be on-record as supporting mega-casinos because Patrick has turned the gambling industry into a lifeline of campaign funding for his allies. Slot machine companies, scratch card companies, racetrack developers, and others are among the biggest contributors to Massachusetts politicians.
#2
At the same time, Patrick, [House Speaker Robert] DeLeo, and their allies need gambling to fail because gambling is terrible public policy. Promises of huge revenue streams always accompany its introduction, but these are easily enough debunked in theory, and other states have failed to realize them in practice.
Caldwell also says this in reference to the casino vs. racino debate:
It is this distinction between working-class and upper-class gambling that most Massachusetts pundits seized on when they sought to explain the ostensible breach between Patrick and DeLeo. The split in Massachusetts politics is one not of party, but of class.
Massachusetts casino gambling mavens, please weigh in.
Campaign Outsider 
Rather than being a casino gambling “rumpus,” I thought it was a gambling “rapture” — until Patrick’s amendment and veto threat turned it into a “rupture.”
You can tell when a pol has been
wined and dined and financially supportedlobbied by representatives of the gambling industry when they start using the term “gaming,” not “gambling.” When I play Go Fish with my 7-year-old it is gaming; when we wager her lunch money it’s gambling.Your noun goes here.
Members of the state house of representatives had to vote in favor of casinos in order to keep their leadership posts; DeLeo has put so many of them into leadership positions, with the salary bonuses to go with them, that they are dependent on his good favors.
And DeLeo only wants slots at those two racetracks. He doesn’t care about anything else. He doesn’t care whether or not “destination casinos” ever get built as long as he can deliver the bacon to those tending the horses and greyhounds. He’ll block everything else until he gets his way.