2008 Gaming Convention off to Start Amid Bad Economic Times...

The current economic downturn has effected more than Wall Street, Main Street, the Auto Makers and other big industry. The Gaming industry and the casinos in the various jurisdictions are feeling the pain. As most of you have heard I've been on a rant for a few days on many posts about the Atlantic City Casinos and the problems they have been experiencing for almost a year now. The issue is, that these problems are far more reaching than just the Atlantic City areae and that is just what the 2008 Gaming Conference has on it's agenda to discuss. The convention's official name the Globabl Gaming Expo, is expected to bring with it about 30,000 gaming professionals to the city of Las Vegas. Sure the economic times are tough, and even this kind of traveling is expensive to any company's books, but a sign of solidarity and bouncing some ideas off of each other is still a must.

Statistics that have been gathered show that as a whole, industry revenue across the United States in the third quarter was down by 4.6%. Many gaming officials are seeing two general reasons for this issue. The first , the economy is keeping the consumers from coming to the casinos and spending money. The second, due to the tight credit markets financial institutions are less likely to lend money with decent interest rates in order to keep casinos a float and to invest in property and marketing initiatives.

The opinion of this writer is that there is far more issues that face the gaming industry today. No doubt that the economic downturn keeps people from spending money. That's an easy one to analyze. The issues I'm seeing are that for whatever reason, the jursidictions, the states, the very people that have benefited economically from legalizing these businesses are more than half the problem. Tighter legislation, laws that actually negatively effect the industry such as anti-smoking, and other efforts on the part of the populace of many of these jurisdictions just are hindering any rebound.

It is my hope that this conference brings to the forefront these issues a little more and in greater view of the people that are being effected. In times when economic downturn was an issue, the legalization of casinos was a viable option. Why, now are many biting the hand that feeds them?