The recent editorial (Insanity, or matter of time? Sept. 13) that made a renewed case for a casino in Oxford County ignores the facts.

Let’s start with your main premise: a casino would be good for Oxford County, you claim, “because it could work” by bringing jobs and economic development to an economically depressed region of Maine.

Here’s the problem: casinos haven’t worked anywhere else to bring jobs and economic development, so why would a casino work for Oxford County?

All you have to do is look at Bangor. Hollywood Slots promised jobs and economic development for that region too. But the fact is, Bangor is no better off in the current economic downturn than communities that don’t have a casino. Unemployment is up, retail sales are down, crime is up, and a number of local restaurants and retail businesses have closed since the opening of Hollywood Slots.

The Bangor casino has not been the economic panacea that its promoters promised, not even for the state’s harness racing industry. It’s true that horse breeders and owners are receiving a subsidy from the slot machines. But figures from the Maine Harness Racing Commission show that the number of people attending and betting on harness racing events has plummeted, year after year, since the opening of the Bangor casino. And the state’s share of the revenue from harness racing has dropped too.

All we’ve done with the introduction of slot machines is establish competition for harness racing and other gambling venues. The state’s off track betting parlors have seen a decline in players too. The sale of lottery tickets, which increased over the last few years everywhere else, has declined in the Bangor area. Even the Penobscot Indian Tribe, which runs a high stakes bingo game on its reservation, has suffered, and the state’s share of its game has gone from $150,000 a year to just $3,800.

This clearly demonstrates one of our chief objections to casinos: rather than make the economic pie bigger, casinos merely move money, jobs and economic development from one part of our economy into the casino economy. The money being spent on the slot machines in Bangor is simply money that would have been spent somewhere else in Maine, and most likely on products and services that add revenue to the state through sales taxes. If you add up the lost revenue to the state from the declines in harness racing, lottery sales, OTBs and other retail businesses, the contribution to the state from slot machines is minimal at best.

But if the Bangor experience isn’t convincing, look a few hundred miles south, to Rhode Island, home to two large casinos, one of which, the Twin Rivers Casino just outside Providence, declared bankruptcy in July. Or further south to Foxwoods, the largest casino in the country. It laid off 700 workers — 6 percent of its workforce — in the last year and is teetering on financial collapse.

Neither of these casinos has lived up to their promise of jobs and economic development. Both Rhode Island and Connecticut are struggling with budget deficits and record unemployment. So is Nevada, home to the largest concentration of casinos, where the unemployment rate is the second highest in the country, behind Michigan. (Rhode Island is third.)

If casinos bring jobs and economic prosperity, where is the evidence?

We all want to see jobs and prosperity throughout Maine. But let’s concentrate on businesses that have a track record of success and contribute to our overall prosperity rather than on industries that only compete with our existing businesses and jobs. Casinos would bring problems to Maine that we don’t need.

Phil Harriman of Yarmouth is a former state senator and serves as chair of CasinosNO!, the grassroots organization opposed to the expansion of casino gambling in Maine.