Strome Business Minute With Dr. Jeff Tanner

The state-funded study examining the economics of five resort-style casinos across the state is out. The report says seventy six hundred jobs will be created with a median salary of about thirty-three thousand dollars, meaning half will be well below livable wages. In addition, the study says that the Danville location will have the greatest out-of-state revenue, or about thirty-two percent. That means that the best case scenario still requires local consumers to be successful. In Norfolk and Portsmouth, nearly all of casino revenue will come from consumers shifting spending from other purchases to casinos, as reported by our State of the Region study done in 2015, so the high estimates of tax revenue are really just shifts from one source to another.