A proposal emerged this month to put a casino in Midtown Manhattan, at Hudson Yards. Expect the promoters and politicians they support to make economic and jobs claims that sound too good to be true, following a script of 30 years of self-interested casino campaigns across America.

My latest research finds little evidence that casinos boost their local economies over time and strong evidence that casino economies do much worse in recessionary times than non-casino economies, for several reasons.

The money casinos tout is not money from thin air. Dollars dropped into slot machines, which provide roughly 75% of casino revenues, are dollars not spent in local businesses.