Leadership Quote by Craig Benson

Craig Benson is doing the politician’s favorite trick: praising the money while quietly burying the idea. He opens with the dutiful nod to revenue - the magic word that makes any controversial policy sound like basic arithmetic - then immediately tags it as “temporary,” a small adjective doing the work of a whole opposition brief. The intent is to inoculate himself against the charge of being anti-business or anti-growth while signaling skepticism about gambling as an economic strategy.

The subtext is regional and defensive. New Hampshire, wedged between bigger neighbors, can’t pretend it’s Las Vegas; it’s more like a rest stop that profits when the next exit doesn’t offer the same service. Benson’s premise is that gambling revenue here would be largely imported, not organically generated: patrons arrive because Massachusetts doesn’t have the option. That makes the entire model fragile, dependent on other states’ moral and legislative choices. He’s warning that what looks like prosperity is really arbitrage.

Context matters because it frames gambling as policy-by-competition, not policy-by-principle. Benson isn’t weighing addiction, crime, or personal freedom; he’s thinking like a governor watching a balance sheet and a map. The real argument is about sustainability and leverage: if Massachusetts legalizes gambling, New Hampshire loses its advantage and is left with the infrastructure and social costs but without the cash cushion. It’s a cautious pitch dressed as realism: don’t build your budget on someone else’s prohibition.