Place Your Bets

Well, nothing else has worked:

A trial to approve Detroit's plan to exit its $18 billion bankruptcy, the largest municipal crash in U.S. history, begins in late July. Flawed revenue projections may undermine its feasibility, creating a key legal hurdle to win approval by the court. On a practical level, a revenue shortfall could knock the city down just as it is getting back on its feet.

Detroit Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr projects that wagering tax revenue from three local casinos, the city's third largest source of cash, will remain essentially steady as far ahead as 2023.

Orr has described the gambling taxes as Detroit's most stable source of money. But casino revenue has declined of late in Detroit itself and in recent years traditional gambling hubs like Nevada and New Jersey as well as relative newcomers to the wagering scene, such as neighboring Ohio, have seen swoons.

"Projecting casino revenue is notoriously difficult," Moody's Investors Service casino analyst Keith Foley said. "But nobody is saying it is going to get better."

People also prefer living in those places...