South Florida learns on slot machine handling from the best
West Virginia serves a model for South Florida citizens who are awaiting slot machines arrival to four pari-mutuels in Broward County. The template of alleged economic welfare driven by slot machine gambling in West Florida induced Florida legislators in Tallahassee to try and define the payouts and taxation rates of the latest approved slots at two tracks and two jai-alai frontons.
Back in 1994, wretched economy of West Virginia adopted slots as an immediate remedy for survival. Gambling deployment had sweet promises of increased financial flows to be spent on education and recreation of schooling facilities as well as other social programs.
The debate over whether slots have indeed been the ultimate redemption for West Virginia’s economic blight remains to be a hung in the balance issue. Today, West Virginia numbers more than 11,000 slot machines on its territory. It seems that it is the gambling industry that has enriched itself enormously, whereas, West Virginia still remains an impoverished country with lots of potential. The pari-mutuel tracks form an $800 million industry.
Mini casinos have occupied their bar niches, strip malls and fraternal organizations in neighborhoods from southern coalfields to the northern steel towns, and in the rural hamlets in between. Before the slots appeared online tracks employed about 120 workers, currently around 880 employees are working at the tracks. Yet, many of the slots gambling opponents believe much more to the Gov. Jeb Bush’s words that deter citizens from falling into the “false hopes”.
