Poverty and Casino Gaming Development [PhD thesis]

The thesis "The Tunica Miracle, Sin and Savior in America’s Ethiopia: A Poverty and Social Impact Analysis of Casino Gaming in Tunica, MS" (2005, May) was completed by Tracey Farrigan as part of her PhD from Pennsylvania State University.


"Specifically, the Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA) framework developed by the World Bank as a means of assessing the distributional impacts of policy reform on vulnerable populations in developing nations is applied to a critical case in the United States––Tunica County, Mississippi, one of the nation’s historically most impoverished counties, previously known as America’s Ethiopia. This comprehensive impact assessment of casino gaming as an economic development strategy in the Tunica area details the questionable politics of class,
congruent with the region’s history of race relations, as the primary causal factor in
determining the poverty outcome. This is accomplished by using a realist methodology
to amass conclusive evidence to argue that despite the success of the casino industry in
Tunica County, where much has changed; much has tragically remained the same for the
majority of the poor in this region." (from abstract)