I was EVP of Resorts International when we opened the first Atlantic City casino in 1978. I prepared the impact statement for the 1976 casino referendum and then worked with the NJ Legislature in drafting the Casino Control Act.

In South Jersey, we had tremendous unemployment from the closings of glass factories, so NJ provided daily bus service from 6 South Jersey counties with casinos eventually providing gaming and support industry jobs to over 60,000 persons - almost exclusively from those 6 counties.

But, being close to Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore and Washington, we had 30 million persons close enough for a same day visit.

There are ways to help areas that are handicapped by economic changes, other than adding one or two casinos. That can be accomplished by placing casinos in resorts or areas near larger metro population densities and then sharing the much larger tax revenues with the troubled communities. And if you limit the number of licenses, you can introduce tax rates on slot machine win, of 50%, and still get developers to build meaningful casino resorts.

You could still build a medium sized casino in Bristol that might employ 500 to 1,000 people. But a logical site for attracting out of state visitors would be Virginia Beach, which is close enough to Norfolk and Portsmouth, where other communities being considered for casinos, can bus in employees from these cities.