Urban Alliances: The unique challenges of building casinos in a city
Casinos located in cities have long had an uneasy alliance with their host communities.
Local municipalities have enjoyed the tax revenues and jobs that casinos brought and civic leaders have recognized the charitable contributions casino leadership have made to their communities, as well as their greater economic contributions. Yet, cities have long treated casinos with a certain degree of disdain, relegating them to locations that would be unappealing to any hotel developer.
At the same time, many city governments have showered developers of sports venues, hotels and convention centers with a wealth of benefits including tax abatements, generous land leases, municipal bond funding and sales tax rebates in the hope that those developments would somehow lead to a revitalization of their urban cores.
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