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Business

Are casinos coming to Georgia?

Video to preview Sunday, Sept. 13 story on MGM's plan to bring casinos to Georgia.
By
Sept 11, 2015

Care to gamble and skip the four hour flight to Las Vegas?

If the megawatt company behind the MGM Grand and Bellagio casinos in Las Vegas has its way, casinos might soon come to Georgia. MGM Resorts International is making a play to bring more gambling to Georgia, and they’ve scouted for a $1 billion resort in Atlanta.

Their pitch: thousands of jobs and more money for the HOPE Scholarship.

The worry: gambling addicts and moral decay.

Efforts to legalize horse racing have stalled for years, and other attempts to allow casinos have been killed by conservative lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, who see gambling as a societal blight.

The battle over casinos starts in earnest on Monday and Tuesday as Georgia lawmakers weigh whether casino gambling and betting on horses can beef up HOPE, which faces financial pressures.

It’s a debate likely to spill over from the Gold Dome into radio and TV ads both for and against for months, if not years, to come.

Read more about the case for casinos in Sunday’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution and online at myAJC.com.

About the Author

J. Scott Trubey is the economy and environment editor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He previously served as a business reporter for the AJC covering banking, real estate and economic development. Trubey is also a former investigative reporter, with a specialty in banking, real estate and public corruption. He joined the AJC in 2010.

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