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Esquire Magazine’s digital edition featured an article Wednesday on how sex, drugs and gambling can actually help a nation’s economy.
They offer up a few strong examples.
When we think of sex and drugs and tourism, Amsterdam is typically the first thing that flashes in our minds.
But Amsterdam does not hold a monopoly on these types of SINdustries.
What about Pattaya, Thailand?
From Esquire:
Pattaya, Thailand rarely gets the pimping props it deserves. In Pattaya, where prostitution is technically illegal, sex is referred to as “entertainment,” and “bar girls” are everywhere.
The hotels are hourly, the massages exactly like you'd expect them to, and the cabarets feature a veritable cornucopia of dancing ladyboys. Nine million tourists visited Pattaya in 2013 alone, and they didn’t come to see ping-pong balls used like ping pong balls.
Michael Howard of Esquire also points out that Afghanistan is the largest producer of opium in the world and there is obviously a demand for the drug. In May of this year alone, the Helmand Province of Afghanistan has harvested $50 million worth of opium.
And then there is gambling.
Las Vegas serves as the almost perfect example.
Despite the past five consecutive years of casinos reporting net losses, the Strip still made over $3.5 billion in revenue in 2013 on gaming alone. Without gambling, Vegas would just be an arid wasteland of ruined lives and failed circus characters… who could no longer gamble.
It’s easy to argue that the United States second largest gambling destination Atlantic City hasn’t quite fared as well but one has to look at the whole picture.
Before gambling became legalized in 1978, Atlantic City was like a number of other corrupt New Jersey seaside communities (i.e. Asbury Park) - dilapidated and falling by the wayside.
The city still has its eyesores, poverty, crime and casinos are losing money but, as a whole, Atlantic City has fared pretty well over these past couple of decades since the introduction of gambling. In fact, the city’s recent woes can be attributed to competition from other nearby gambling-friendly destinations like Eastern Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
- Aaron Goldstein, Gambling911.com
