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My town had a similar debate. They were in a severely economically depressed area, and it was suggested that casino revenues would increase city revenue.

They built 3 casinos with public assistance, in a town of 80k. The result?

Businesses located downtown saw their business decrease. This forced them to go out of business and shutter their doors. Which resulted in a drop in taxation.

The Casino closed their downtown location, and managed to finagle a substantial property along the highway from the state. Exemptations to city taxes and state taxes. They built a much larger casino and hotel. The result was that the downtown core suffered from people actually going from the town center out to the casino.

Then the city, once again, funded and rebuilt a new casino downtown. Which the large casino operator sued and attempted to shut down. It still hasn’t opened as the city is fighting the casino operator.

The result? Three publicly built casinos, tax revenue for the city has gone down drastically, and tourism has actually declined. I used to work for a local developer, and we had a strategy put together to entrench on the assumption that revenue would drop. He had been considering expansion, but I told him that he would do well to hang onto what he had and try to ride it through.

The only person who’s actually benefitted from the casino is the owner, and his board. That’s it. Businesses have seen their revenue decline substantially, which has resulted in a lack of work for young people like me, meaning that even more people flee the economically depressed area which is in a death spiral.