Casino Opponents Trying to Play David to Gaming Industry’s Goliath

  

Supporters of the casino repeal effort seem like they’re embracing the role of the underdog.

Campaign finance filings released earlier this month show the group working to pass Question 3 on Massachusetts ballots this November—which would do away with laws allowing planned casinos to be built in the state—will be vastly outspent by those who are campaigning to keep the laws in place. By the numbers, repeal hopefuls have about $25,000 on hand, compared to $1.2 million for casino supporters.

The fundraising discrepancy isn’t surprising, as the state’s budding casino industry was widely expected to chip in to keep their investments intact. MGM Resorts and Penn National Gaming, with gaming developments planned for Springfield and Plainville respectively, have donated $1.75 million to the cause so far. (Most people expect Wynn Resorts, which just last week won the lone Boston-area casino license, to chip in as well. In an interview with The Boston Globe published over the weekend, however, Wynn left that question up in the air.)

Even without Wynn, from a financial perspective, casino opponents don’t have much of a chance of catching up.

With that in mind, they seem eager enough to embrace that fact, framing the dynamic as a grass roots movement taking on the big money elite. Here’s how Repeal the Casino Deal, the group leading the ballot fight, framed the news that they were getting blown out of the water by the casino industry in fundraising, as reported by MassLive:

“We are incredibly pleased with the progress we’ve made in building a grassroots campaign since the Supreme Judicial Court decision in late June. We’ve attracted 263 individual donors to the campaign from around the state, hard-working people who can’t write million dollar checks like the casino bosses and their hired guns,” said David Guarino, a spokesman for the repeal effort. “We are focused on continuing to build the grassroots and going neighbor-to-neighbor, where we will win this.”

And Sunday, Stand for Democracy, a separate anti-casino group comprised of Harvard professors and religious leaders, played on the same idea in a press release:

We understand that our friends throughout the repeal camp have amassed a large amount of legal debt courageously fighting a predatory Goliath. However, we, Stand For Democracy and our religious affiliates are here to assure those in support of Question 3, MGM, Penn National, and Steve Wynn that the religious communities in Massachusetts have never been stronger and on a more united front with regards to a social issue than with Question 3.

With the finances and, to this point, the polls tilted against repeal, this sort of populist messaging might be the best bet for the repeal effort. A recent article published in MIT’s Sloan Management Review explored how small businesses that are facing a threat from a larger competitor gain consumer support by marketinging themselves as the David to the bigger company’s Goliath. Business-to-politics doesn’t make for a direct comparison, but repeal supporters have little to lose by trying to make the financial disadvantage a part of the narrative.

However, taking the Sloan comparison a little further, even the smaller business still need to get their message out—which is something the repeal group has to do on a fairly limited budget. As much as the group might hope the appeal of the little guy will carry, it would surely accept a few million fresh dollars in its coffers.