Legalize casinos now!

To the editor,

I do not enjoy casinos, myself, but many people save money all year, and then take it to Portland, Las Vegas or Macau, China to enjoy casinos there, and they spend all their money out of state! We should legalize and build casinos here to keep and re-circulate all that money right here in Alaska. If any state should allow gambling casinos and state lotteries, it should be Alaska, because all of us, who settled this land, are gamblers at heart!

According to statista.com, the average annual salary of casino employees in Nevada is $45,113, and the leading casino company, Las Vegas Sands, generated $14.58 billion, and MGM Resorts generated approximately $10.08 billion in revenue in 2014. If we legalize and tax casinos at 30 percent, then this new revenue would almost balance our state budget by itself. So, let’s invite MGM Resorts and Las Vegas Sands to Alaska!

Alaska should also put more state-owned land up for sale, NOW, at market value to raise revenue. Alaska has roughly 104 million acres of state land that we should put up for sale. It is time to sell more of this land to raise money. In fact, our constitution requires that we sell this land to encourage development and settlement.

Tell your representatives to do these two things, and they will not need to cap our PFDs, and they will not need to impose a state income tax on us, and they might just win our votes next election.

Daniel N. Russell

Willow