we will strengthen americas leadership here on earth. so astronauts will rent space. and the contracts are worth nearly $7 billion. and that is all of our time thank you for being with us. see you back here at 6:00. inside story is next, on al jazeera america. >> thousands of casino workers in new jersey have lost their jobs as atlantic city continues to decline while next door in new york the state is ready to gamble on competing bids for massive new casinos. chasing gaming dollars. if you stick around i bet you learn something. it's "inside story."

>> hello, i'm ray suarez. once upon a time, well, not all that long ago, really, if you wanted to play blackjack or poker, shoes dice or pull on a slot machine there were few places to do it legally. las vegas, nevada, atlantic city, new jersey, and a few places like card clubs tucked away in communities on indian land. fast forward to 2014 there are casinos across america. on reservations, river boats, city centers and a very short ride away in canada and the caribbean. add to the blackjack tables the slots that show up on racetrack to save that declining gaming, and an explosion of opportunities to play online for

real money and limited access is over. atlantic city and vegas have to fight for every dollar with the gambling mecca on every shore losing the battle and now in full decline. in may 1984 don't trump opened his trump hotel and casino in atlantic city calling it possibly the finest building in the nation. on tuesday the casino shut it's doors making it the fourth atlantic city casino to shut down this year. revel, showboat, and atlantic club went out of business. the atlantic city convention center served as an unemployment center to dispense benefit checks last month. >> we never thought it would really happen. we thought, they're not going to close this building, but they closed it. >> reporter: the taj mahal has

filed for bankruptcy, and will close its doors in september. >> we love it here. we've been coming here for 20 years. it's a shame. real shame. >> reporter: since atlantic city's gambling revenue peaked in 2067 2006, it has spiraled downward. >> there is a proliferation of casinos all over the united states especially on the east coast. with so many casinos in our town, our entire economy still wrapped around casinos we knew when the bottom hit. we just didn't know how bad, and we didn't realize it was all going to come at the same time. >> reporter: behavior when there weren't many places to gamble in the u.s. hosting a casino could be seen as politically risky or morally wrong. now some applications and local leaders are looking to casinos

to revialize and economic engines to boost state revenues. before 1988 there were only two casinos to gamble in, and today 39 states and an explosion of internet sites. betting meccas across the nation are increasingly feeling the heat. new jersey's gambling fell about $2.1 billion between 2007 and 2013. in las vegas gambling revenue fell by $300 million over that same period. governor andrew cuomo of new york sees gaming as key to economic development in areas that are struggling. >> our casino plan is already generating great interest. we said we believed it would, and it is. our challenge now is to make casinos a reality, make it happen, make it happen fast, and make it happen correctly. >> reporter: there is a high-stakes competition right now for rights to build as many

as four new full-scale resort casinos within driving distance of new york city. as the gambling market becomes more saturated and more states place goats boost thei place more bets, does the saying go what happens in the catskills stay in the catskills. >> the use of economic play, and how did it happen that we gradually moved as a society from trying to limit gambling and thus limit social costs to struggl shrugs our shoulders and watching casinos pop up from coast to coast. steve light, codirector for the institute of tribal gaming law and policy at the university of north dakota.

paul bonnie, the member of the grouped "stop predatory gambling," and and welcome to you all. doug walker, let me start with you. once scenes opened in maryland, pennsylvania, delaware, connecticut, wasn't it predictable that aren't city's bottom line was going to erode? >> pennsylvania has done well. connecticut has done well. as it has expended you would expect a market like atlantic city to start to decline because there isn't a reason to drive out there when there is a casino close for home. >> now new york is coming online. won't that put further pressure on what may be a relatively inelace tic inelastic number of

dollars. >> the greater available in new york, the people of new york are more likely to stay at home as opposed to go into other states. the market has changed by states expanding gambling are trying to keep their own customers within the state to keep the tax refs at home. >> paul bonnie, maybe relatively inelastic, but not totally inelastic does gaming availability make people more willing to open their wallets? >> it's not necessarily willingly but the on set of problem gambling and gambling addiction. these government programs, and that's what they are, government programs. these localities and states, they're not clamoring for casinos. it's the government that is unable or unwilling to raise taxes or budge balance budgets in an honest way they use these

tactics to extract as much money from people and what has cultivated gambling addiction. for instance, 24 hour operation, free alcohol but only if you're gambling. exemption from smoking bans. easy credit on the gambling floor. these are predatory tactics that we would not allow any other industry to use, but because the government is in on it, and they get part of the take they actually encourage and allow these types of practices. >> those phrases, cultivating addiction, predatory behavior, a lot of people describe this as almost a voluntary tax. that because it's so hard to go to the people in a political way and say, vote for me to let me tax you more, you're in effect saying here, here is an opportunity. you know what the odds are. the house wins. that's why these places are th the opulent buildings that they

are. but here, go ahead. >> well, as we know the slot machine, which is where most of the money comes from, is a highly addictive device. even the government in th and the industry readily aadmit this. we put this in densely populated areas without really knowing what's going to happen. and you know, the industry guards its data very strongly, and the question that the industry is not willing to answer, what percentage of the revenue is coming from problem gamblers. how much of this industry, how much of the scale of what we're extracting from our citizens is coming from problem gamblers. that's the statistic that the industry will not answer for you. >> steve, the enormous take from indian-aligned casino

operations, it's equal to the top gambling states combined. has it helped very much on tribal lands? >> well it's an interesting development in just 25 years. we're talking about a $28 billion industry across 19 states, as you said the take is enormous. and yet it's really important to remember that that take is distributed across some 240 tribes across the united states. >> are some tribes advantaged by history and geography more than others? there are tribal lands well away where there are large number of people and large deposits of capitol. >> yes, and that's what is interesting in thinking about the distribution of indian gaming across the u.s. and potentially it's impact on the

east coast as well. it depends on where you're looking at it. so if we're in the heartland of the united states most of the tribes here are--have very large populations and are in rural areas that face extreme poverty and economic development challenges. if you're looking for the east coast or west coast, not so much. the proliferation of casinos on the east coast have a competitive advantage in certain ways that accrue to tribal sovereignty, actually. when tribes have been able to capitalize quite well. >> many of the describes in california, rhode island and massachusetts are quite small and benefiting a small number of people, aren't they? >> that is true, and yet as we think about indian gaming i think it's fair to stalk about a spectrum of success, that includes the relative size of

the tribe and it's location. it's all about location, location, location. there are some significant constraints on that basis for many tribes, and the tribes that have large populations in the tens of thousands the benefit to those tribes is more of the economic development and job creation. the industry on the whole has created 700,000 jobs across the united states. and those are not distributed evenly across the u.s. the impact is much higher for the rural tribes than the small describes that you described. >> doug walker, the late arrivals in casino gambling, i'm having a hard time understanding how they think they're going to come out ahead on this deal. if you're entering a mature market, and the table stakes, if you will, are so huge, i mean, that's a lot of up-front money for building a casino. how did you live cannibalizing

existing markets. >> from the state government's perspective, their goal is to keep the people at home. massachusetts, for example, i think people there spend close to $1 billion a year in connecticut and elsewhere. so the government wants to keep the tax revenue at home. in terms of the industry, obviously as the industry has expanded, and as they don't have these big regional monopolies now and it's more widespread the industry has had to adjust to small properties spread out. you see the average size of new casinos getting smaller and smaller. >> we'll take a short break. when we come back to "inside story," we'll talk about the choices states and communities make when they allow gambling, the big operators promise a river of revenue, but what comes with that, the governor, county executive or mayor has to think about.

>> welcome back to "inside story." >> nevada legalized gambling in 1931, and it is still by far the revenue leader generating nearly $11 billion in 2012. which state is number two?

pennsylvania? it's been legal there since 2004, and the state surpassed new jersey in revenue with $3.16 billion two years ago. as we discussed new jersey and atlantic city has seen gambling fortunes decline it ranked third place with $3 billion. new jersey has been gaming since 1976. and number four might surprise you, it's indiana. it's been legal there since 1993. the state brought in $2.61 billion. those numbers are from 2012. it's important to note that they don't include gaming on tribal land. last year the national indian gaming commission reported revenue of $28 billion. paul bonnie, you've been talking as if it's well understand what the down sides of widespread gambling are. when a casino operator approaches a community, do they

have to acknowledge that up front and build in protections? is that now part of what has to go on when service proposes gambling, say as is the catskills as is on offer right now. >> well, it is acknowledged, and a small amount of money is set aside for gambling--for treatment of gambling addicts and problem gamblers, but that's not really sufficient, and it is not really the way to understand the problem. the way to understand the problem is to try and prevent addiction from setting in, in the first place. that's by defanging the industry from these predatory tactics. but a lot of the negative ramifications of casinos in urban areas are not readily apparent, and are not things that the government likes to understand and likes to talk about because they want to say that this was an innocent

entertainment option. so what you have when you have problem gamblers and gambling addicts you have folks who will, unfortunately, beg, borrow and steal in order to support their habit. they'll be dipping into their children's college fund. they'll be borrowing from friends and families and yes, they'll commit fraud and embezzle in from employers and whoever. these are ramifications to the costs of the legal justice program, and it effects the society at large whether you walk into a casino or not. there are massive public health and economic impacts to the communities to which these facilities enter. >> what is a check list of things you would want changed that would help alleviate some of these problems? >> well, i guess for the first part when states passed these

laws legalizing scenes they were done in the dead of night and combined with some other legislation. state legislatures rarely have a full and open debate about the laws they're passing about these facilities. but i would take a hard look at the tactics that i've listed. i would not let casinos be open 24 hours a day, and that's just a predatory citing of these locations. when you have to go to las vegas, and you have to take a weekend to go there, that's one thing. but when you can go to a casino on your way to work, your lunch hour without letting your spouse know, that's a very destructive,

and it's top to bottom of these programs whether they have the intention or not, they have the effect of maximizing cultivati cultivating. >> doug walker, the casino operators over the past couple decades have approached municipalities, counties with economic difficulties. is there more bargaining power on the community side of the table than they realize? can they demand payments for more policing to bring down drunk driving, to stop prostitution, to be preventive of organized crime having influence in the gaming industry. can they drive a har harder bargain before they provide land for a gaming complex? >> i think that probably could happen. but the first it would be at the

state government level. it has to be legalized by the state before the communities get involved. once the states approve it, it's going to be a battle between the different communities as to which ones want to host the casino. when you get into that situation if there are competing communities they're likely to demand less from the casino to site the casino in their town. it really depends how much demand there is on the part of the local governments to get the casino there. if there is competition, you're unlikely to see higher demands from the casinos. >> steve, you mentioned earlier it's only been 25 years since the tribes have been heavily involved in this business. over that time has there been a learning curve? have best practices evolved? are there things that the tribes did in the early years of the story of the industry that they might not do today because they've learned perhaps by

bitter experience what works and what doesn't? >> i think in the last 25 years there have been enormous changes in the tribal gaming tricks and actually the majority of tribal casinos are heavily invested in partnerships with commercial operators. those who design the software create the machines, the slot machines, and so on. these are intense partnerships. best practices have definitely evolved over time. in the financing of casinos in the player protections that paul was concerned about, in the types of software that make sure that the slot machines are regulated in the proper ways. and interestingly indian game something regulated at three levels of government, the tribal level, the state level, and the federal level. it is the only type of gaming regulated by three levels of government, and there is considerable best practices of

sharing among those governments. in some ways the entire landscape of gaming across the united states including for atlantic city has been shaped about what has happened in indian gaming over the 25 years. >> when we come back we'll look at future of gaming in america as a frantic competition for gambling dollars, but waiting in the wings is the internet, no travel, no hotel room, no chips necessary. a few hands of poker are as close as your laptop or your phone. is online gamble really a killer app? stay with us. @jvé

>> welcome back to inside story on al jazeera america. i'm ray suarez. the spread of the gaming industry, the up sides and down sides of taking a chance on gambling. even as atlantic city's largest

opulent casino revel has closed, a proposal of a multi dollar casino residential project at the other end of the state in jersey city. with us, at the university of north dakota, paul boni, with the group stop predator predatory gaming, and doug walker. do they send people to testify in congress who are deliberating how open the internet should be to gamic game gaming? >> i think internet is the next wave of gambling, i think it's a matter of time. i think tribes are fully aware of that.

the concern has evolved from one of online gaming will fundamentally erode land-based gaming and it can complement the revenue stream. for that person who sits at home and wants to play on the internet is different than a couple who might arrive at a destination resort. while tribes were in opposition at first, they are trying to figure out what play is best for them in the long run. >> of course, that 23-year-old gamer online is going to be a 33-year-old gamer and not someone who will drive to the casino. paul boni, what are your concerns as the internet becomes a bigger part of the gambling range? >> well, it's the ultimate in

convenience. you can gamble on the bus, or for god's sake, in the bathroom if you want. if it is inevitable, it's only inevitable because our government and maybe even federal government is incapable of balancing a budget in an honest and transparent way in raising money for public services in an honest way. i hope it's not inevitable, and i hope we don't get there. >> doug walker you just her steve talk about fearing to moving towards the online world to getting a piece of the action, is that where companies involved with gaming are going with this? >> i think so. the online gambling and expansion are inevitable. the evidence shows that they're complementary with land use

casinos. i think it's in their best interest to adapt to that. >> the internet is not yet a place, so it will be interesting to see not only the national competition for this, but the international competition over that american gambling dollar. that brings us to the end of this edition of inside story. thank you for being with us. the program may be over, but the conversation continues. we want to hear what you think about the issues raised on this or any day's show. you can log on to our facebook page. you can send us your thoughts on twitter. our handle it aj inside story a.m. or you can reach me directly or follow me on ray suarez news. in washington, i'm ray suarez. >> coming up on al jazeera.

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