Friday, Aug. 4, 2000 | 10:39 a.m.
DETROIT -- Mayor Dennis Archer rolled a seven at the craps table of Detroit's first casino last year -- a good sign for the man wagering that gambling keeps the city rolling toward revival.
A year after that July 29 opening, city leaders and anti-gambling forces are tallying the wins, losses and draws since Detroit became the nation's largest city with casino gambling.
On the winning side, backers say, is the $50 million or so that has poured into the city's coffers as tax revenue from the year-old MGM Grand Detroit and the MotorCity Casino, which opened in December.
There are the more than 5,000 jobs, many filled by people once on local welfare rolls. And there are small stories of winnings shared, like the casino chips left in a church's collection basket.
"The city of Detroit has made out like a bandit in the first year," says David Littmann, Comerica Bank's chief economist. "I think it's exceeded expectations, some due to the novelty."
Renee Monforton, spokeswoman for the Metro Detroit Convention and Visitors Bureau, says her group is researching the casinos' effect on tourism travel to the area but doesn't have figures yet.
"Anecdotally, we're very pleased," she says. "We're seeing it through telephone inquiries; people are calling us to find what other things to do when they get here."
On the other hand, the casinos have drawn money away from state lottery sales -- and from many gamblers who critics say least can afford to lose. They've kept workers at a problem-gamblers help line hopping and been scrutinized for what's believed to be the nation's first: a suicide inside a gambling hall.
And while Detroit's treasury has benefitted from the casino tax revenue, critics say there's nothing tangible to show for it.
"I don't think they're the answer to all the problems that we face," says City Councilwoman Maryann Mahaffey. "The question is: how are we planning backup? What if there's a recession, and what do we do about the houses that get lost, the family breakups?"
MGM Grand and MotorCity, controlled respectively by Las Vegas-based MGM MIRAGE and the Mandalay Resort Group, are operating in temporary quarters with most trappings of the real thing. Their permanent casinos are scheduled to open by 2004 along the Detroit River, although the land hasn't yet been acquired.
"Right now, we're looking at the poor second cousins to what will be coming down the road, and the positive impacts we have now will be a shell of what's to come," says Greg Bowens, the mayor's spokesman.
The third planned casino, in the city's Greektown area, is virtually finished but still unopened as two couples try to sell their 40 percent stake after a state-mandated investigation found concerns about their backgrounds. Planners hope to open the Greektown site this fall.
While Archer hopes the permanent casinos will be a key to the city's turnaround, Littmann and others caution against expecting a long-term fix.
"It simply is not a substitute for repopulating the city," Littmann says. "These are enclaves of entertainment dollars, not broad-based living and working and shopping" money.
The city gets 9.9 percent of what the casinos win from gamblers. City Councilman Nicholas Hood III puts the figure about $50 million, $10 million less than Littmann's calculations.
But critics say that how the money's being spent isn't clear. Poured into the city's general fund, it's mingled with other revenue, muddying efforts to pinpoint city improvements that casino money may have funded.
There's no question the casinos themselves are doing well: Finance reports earlier this year show the MGM Grand took in about $1.1 million a day over a three-month period, the MotorCity about $872,000.
"We had a very wonderful year," says Scott Snow, president and chief operating officer of the MGM Grand Detroit.
Casino Windsor, once the lone player around Detroit, took in $1.4 million daily over the last three months of 1999, the latest figures available. That's down 13 percent from the same period in 1998 but less than the hit it expected with its new rivals.
At the Saginaw Chippewas' 4-year-old Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort in Mount Pleasant, about 150 miles northwest of Detroit, spokesman Bill Masterson says the Detroit casinos so far haven't had much effect on Soaring Eagle.
"We're apples and oranges. We consider ourselves a resort getaway up in a rural area, pretty laid back" with more amenities than simply gambling halls, he says.
American Indian tribes also run smaller casinos in northern Michigan.
The Michigan Lottery through mid-June had seen a $41 million drop in sales for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, after eight straight yearly increases. Commissioner Don Gilmer says the casinos have had a definite impact.
While there's now less lottery revenue going into the state's School Aid Fund, taxes the state collects from Detroit's casinos offset that, the state Treasury Department's Stephanie Van Koevering says.
Through April, midway through the fiscal year, casinos have kicked in $23.2 million to the schools fund, she says.
"Policywise, if you look at it, some might argue that casino gambling might not be something we necessarily should encourage. From that perspective, it's a mixed bag," she says. "But it's definitely a positive in helping our kids."
To the Rev. Russell Kohler, the MGM Grand Detroit has been a good neighbor about 300 feet from his Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church -- beyond just the casino chips left his collection plate the day after the casino opened.
Kohler says he has found casino-assigned police cooperative, checking his church and nearby buildings at all hours. Many riders who step from casino buses inquire about Most Holy Trinity's history, he says.
"I think we wanted the casinos not to just pay homage but be part of the community. I think they will," Kohler says. "I think it's going to work out."
While specific figures about casino-related arrests are not readily available, Inspector Willie Burden of the Detroit Police Department's casino gaming division says crime outside the gambling halls "is down to a minimum, and I mean a minimum" with "nothing significant that's cause for alarm."
At Detroit's Gamblers Anonymous, a spokesman says the addiction-counseling service has seen a 200 percent rise in demand in this year's first three months over the same period in 1999.
The number of calls to the state's toll-free compulsive gambling help line has risen almost monthly, from 1,817 last October to 5,276 in May, though the monthly average as of May was below that of the five months before the first casino opened.
Jim McBryde, who oversees the state Department of Community Health's compulsive gambling program, says callers to the statewide helpline before the Detroit casinos' opening were those who developed gambling problems from casinos elsewhere in the state.
"What it tells us is that people have been getting into trouble gambling long before Detroit casinos," he says. "It certainly doesn't help to give compulsive gamblers more opportunities."
Concerns about the social effects of the casinos were highlighted in January with what was believed to be the first suicide inside a U.S. casino.
Solomon Bell, an off-duty police sergeant from Oak Park, lost $20,000 in a day of gambling. Then, after a costly blackjack hand at the MotorCity, he stepped from the table, pulled a pistol and shot himself in the head.
At the Rev. Jim Holley's Little Rock Baptist Church, at least three members who lost big at Detroit's casinos have been given a combined $3,000 by the church to help them meet rent or mortgage payments, an additional $700 for counseling.
"I just can't see a family being put out because of this. I just didn't want to see them lose their home," said Holley, a longtime gambling opponent. "Believe me, we're just in the embryonic stage of this. It's gonna grow."
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