"The Village of Plover 'Fact Sheet' offered to the public reads like a press release from the tribe," Plover Village Trustee Roger Bullis says.
"There are various national studies and four specific Wisconsin studies which speak specifically to the problems of local casino gambling. Why have those not been given to the public? The 'official fact sheet' is distorted and biased by omission," he said.
Bullis compiled what he called a "better" fact sheet, listing Part One coming from "'Casinos and Crime in Wisconsin' done in 1996 by Professors Gazel, Rickman and Thompson from University of Nevada in Las Vegas and published by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute."
• "The introduction of casino gambling in Wisconsin is associated with increased crime."
• "For the years since casinos began operations (In Wisconsin), major crime impacts were demonstrated in the 14 counties with casinos, as well as other counties that are adjacent to at least two casino counties. The rates of major crimes in these counties were 6.7 higher than they would have been in the absence of casinos. These crimes include violent ones like murder, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault and nonviolent ones like the property offense of burglary and larceny."
• "Impacts for Part II arrests (note: forgery, fraud embezzlement, weapons offenses, prostitution, DWI, drugs etc.) were found for casino counties plus all counties adjacent to casino counties, with rates of arrests 12.2 percent higher."
• "In each of the casino years (1992, 1993, 1994), there were an average of 5,277 more major crimes in Wisconsin that could be associated with the introduction of casinos. Burglary rates in the casino and adjacent counties were 13 percent higher than in the absence of casinos. Statewide, there were an additional 1,697 burglaries each year that could be associated with casinos."
• "An additional Part II arrests were made each year, on average, in Wisconsin as a result of casinos."
• "Additional crime and criminal-justice system costs due to casinos amount to nearly $51 million for Wisconsin each year. These costs include both those necessary to investigate, arrest, arraign, and imprison criminals and those borne by their victims."
Bullis said, "Those public officials and citizens who have commented about not seeing problems with casino gambling need to do their homework and rely on facts from objective sources rather than on their personal feelings and a few anecdotes."
More research information can be found on the web at www.betterplover.com.