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In doing the reporting for her story below, WHYY’s Elizabeth Fiedler paid a visit to the Gallery at Market East and talked to patrons of the mall and folks who work nearby.  She wanted to find out whether people who frequent the Gallery or are regularly in close proximity would find themselves tempted to spend a few dollars at new slots parlor.

Ben Bradlow shot and edited the video.

Economic Impact of Philadelphia’s downtown slots parlor

The Foxwoods Casino was slated for construction along the Delaware Waterfront.  Now officials are considering the Gallery Mall in Center City in part because it’s close to transportation and tourist hubs like Chinatown, and the Convention Center. Gamblers and gaming experts alike are considering what’s at stake.  Whyy’s Elizabeth Fiedler reports.

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Philadelphia is not like many American cities that worked to attract casinos.

Robert Goodman: “East St. Louis, Aurora and Elgin Illinois, Gary, Indiana.”

Those places were desperate, says Former Director of the U.S. Gambling Research Institute Robert Goodman. He says unlike other cities that had fallen on tough times, Philadelphia rejuvenated itself.

Goodman: “This is the first time that casinos are trying to be put into a city that is already flourishing economically.  So what you’re essentially doing is putting that economic resurgence at risk.”

Terry Gillen is a Senior Advisor to Mayor Michael Nutter.  She says some city officials are banking that a casino will serve as a catalyst for economic revitalization for the struggling stretch of Market East.

Gillen: “It takes a dead part of Center City and bring a new potential anchor tenant into the building.  Market Street East used to have two or three big department stores, Gimbel’s, Lit’s, and that sort of thing.  And the era of lots of department stores is gone.”

Gillen says the city is looking into potential traffic, crime, and addiction problems.

La Salle University Economics professor David George says some problem gamblers who resist the urge to head to Las Vegas, could be Gallery-bound.

George: “I don’t want to say there shouldn’t be any gambling but I think we’ve been very cavalier about introducing it. We have more and more gambling problems all the evidence shows. I know that’s a fact and all the evidence shows it.”

George says that’s one reason casinos should be sited far from residential, busy areas.

George: “Something that comes up a lot is you wanna have it where it’s not interfering with neighborhoods. And that’s true but also it would be nice to have it in a place where the impulsiveness isn’t quite as in play. Where people on the Broad Street subway wouldn’t decide to get off and go gamble.  They didn’t even realize they’d do that and all of a sudden they decided they would.”

The Gallery is just steps away from a slew of mass transportation options. That’s part of the appeal, says Foxwoods spokesperson Maureen Garrity.

“It’s a unique transportation hub. It serves the suburbs, the city and New Jersey through SEPTA’s regional rail and buses.  The PATCO speed line is there, New Jersey transit buses. And to our knowledge no other casino in the world has this much access to public transportation.”

A steady stream of shoppers and workers on lunch breaks passes by the Gallery on a recent breezy afternoon.

Standing outside, Sissy McCauley is taking a break from her job. She says at least twice a month she makes the trek to Atlantic City. The health insurance company worker often spends two or three hundred dollars, more than she says she can afford.  McCauley usually makes the trip with friends, but never family.  She says she’d rather they didn’t know.

McCauley: “It’s like a zone. You get in there and it’s like a zone. Everybody wants to hit that jackpot. Everybody wants to becoming rich right away. I don’t know, it’s crazy.”

So if a casino was near her job, would she stop by, say, on her lunch break?

McCauley: “I hope not.  That’d be pretty crazy.  Can you imagine spending your lunch money inside a casino? That’s pretty crazy. I’m sure it would be tempting. You know you’d have to check it out. We’ll see.”

Having a casino in the Gallery might be a problem for some people, but Northeast Philadelphia resident Christopher Ramirez says he can’t wait.

Ramirez: “Some people don’t have the capacity or the knowledge of how to save or put money to the side and some people are just addicted to gambling. But my personal experience, I think it’s a good thing for myself. Because it’s something more local - I don’t have to go so far away - and I like gambling.”

Ramirez says he heads to Atlantic City once a month with about $300 he sets aside after paying bills. Ramirez says he’d go to a casino in Center City more often — maybe once a week.

Mayor Nutter’s Senior Advisor Terry Gillen says the old casino model is changing.

Gillen: “Historically, casinos tried to get you into the building and you stayed all day and you never left.  That was the model, for example, in Atlantic City where these people went down on buses and they spent the whole day inside and never go out, and then they’d go back.”

Gillen says people no longer want an all day casino experience.

Gillen: “So when people go for instance to Las Vegas now, they like to go from one casino to another.  They like to go shopping.  We’re hopeful that if Foxwoods locates in Gallery that we can get it to work with the neighborhood retail experience, with the neighborhood restaurants, to make it part of the destination but not the entire destination.”

But gambling expert Robert Goodman says it’s a mistake to expect that swarms of people will come for the casino, and spend their dollars in other businesses. He says there are only so many discretionary dollars available in a local economy.

Goodman: “So if people decide to gamble their dollars rather than spent it in a restaurant, or a movie theater, or buying another shirt, that’s dollars that aren’t going to go into those other businesses. In fact what you’re going to see is the casinos will subsidize the restaurants in the casino, what they’re going to do is have all kinds of attractions in the casino to keep people in there as long as possible.”

Foxwood’s Maureen Garrity says the gaming group reserves the right to develop the original south Philadelphia site, but she says Center City looks promising.

Garrity: “A preliminary analysis shows this location can generate the kind of return the city, the Commonwealth, and we’re looking for.”

Foxwoods has not signed a lease for The Gallery space. Garrity says they’re still early in the process.

More information

Analysis of Casino Design - A prodigious amount of thought goes into the design and layout of a casino’s gambling floor.

Foxwoods Philadelphia

Casino Free Philadelphia

Plan Philly: How Foxwoods is Playing Out

Comment on this story below.  Would you be more likely to gamble with a slots parlor within easy walking distance of your daily commute?  Are you a gambler who, as Gillen says above, no longer wants “an all day casino experience?”