Pittsburgh Would- Be Casino Operators’ Employment Statistics Hotly Contested
As Pittsburgh gears up to select the company that will bring slot machines to the city, some of the competitors’ statistics have been in severe dispute.
The competitors for the Pittsburgh slot machine gambling license, which include Forest City Enterprises with its proposal for a Harrah’s Casino in Station Square, Isle of Capri Casinos Inc. with a lower Hill District casino proposal, and PITG Gaming LLC, which hopes to build a casino on the North Shore, have each submitted estimates of the boost in employment their casino would provide for Pittsburgh and Allegheny County.
Forest City estimates that its casino would produce up to 3,953 direct jobs, half of which would be full- time positions. Isle of Capri estimates that its casino would produce 979 direct jobs. PITG Gaming estimates that its proposal would result in an additional 1,500 direct jobs.
The gaming operators have also made projections for the number of indirect jobs that would be created by their proposals. While direct employees of a casino are the people that actually work on the gaming floor or in any of the casino’s entertainment venues such as bars and restaurants, indirect employees are those whose jobs are created through the casinos but who do not actually work for the casinos.
Forest City estimates that their venue would produce 5,200 indirect jobs, while the Isle of Capri estimates 3,100 indirect jobs, and PITG gaming estimates 1,500.
Experts warn, however, that many of the numbers created are too baseless to be taken seriously.
"Those figures can be very, very bogus," said Robert Goodman, a professor at Hampshire College. Professor Goodman has studied the economic benefits and drawbacks of gambling on local communities.
Moreover, Professor Goodman said that the numbers can be very deceptive because, although casinos may create jobs, they also may cause the loss of other seemingly unrelated jobs in the region. For example, the fact that people choose to spend their money in the casino may mean that they patronize the local restaurants less; there is, said Professor Goodman, a limited amount of money in the community.
"You're talking essentially about a zero-sum game," he said. "There's no additional money coming in. You're just playing with the same money."
Other experts say that, since the proposed Pittsburgh casinos plan to have only slot machines rather than a mix of slots and table games, the number of employees required will be rather limited. Table games are far more labor- intensive than slot machines.
William N. Thompson, a University of Nevada Las Vegas professor, said that a slots- only casino would need only several hundred direct employees on the gaming floor.
"If these places say they're going to hire 2,300, 3,000 people, it might be through hotels, it might be through restaurants, but it won't be through gaming. If you have 3,000 machines, you probably can run it on 300 employees," he said.
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