A few hundred miles south of Rockingham Park, Barry Endy, 75, has spent much of his life in the Pennsylvanian township of North Strabane where he has watched the community grow up around a racetrack reinvigorated by a new casino.

“The entire area has been built up around it,” he said. “They put in a large shopping outlet, which just opened, right near the interstate. At this point it’s done a lot for the township.”

Endy has seen what was once rural farmland undergo two economic booms, the first coming with the original construction of the Meadows racetrack in the ’60s and a second following fast on the heels of the addition of a new casino – set to open in April – that will house roughly 3,700 slot machines.

Now new retail outlets and hotels have sprung up and property taxes have dropped, a year and a half after the casino opened for business in a temporary facility.

Owned by Millennium Gaming, the same company which holds an option to purchase the Rockingham Park racetrack, the success of the Meadows Racetrack and Casino so far has gambling advocates in New Hampshire pointing not to Las Vegas or Atlantic City, but a community of roughly 12,000 residents nestled just south of Pittsburgh.

“It’s the very apt comparison,” said Richard Killion, a spokesman for the special interest group focused on getting legislation allowing the installation of slots at Rockingham Park, Fix It Now, and Millennium Gaming.

“It can be a great success here. We’re happy to talk about the Meadows because it is the most important comparison. Atlantic City or Las Vegas is not only an inappropriate comparison, it’s complete nonsense. It’s akin to comparing an elm tree to a cactus.”

According to Killion, Millennium is planning to undertake a $450 million casino-building project that supporters say will bring tens of thousands of new jobs to Salem. The project hinges on a bill that senators tabled earlier this month that would allow the installation of 15,000 video slot machines in facilities across the state.

The licensing fees from the slots alone would yield $50 million for the state up front, Killion said.

While slots advocates also point to the estimated $200 million in revenue the casino could bring to the state – based on the success of the Meadows, which earned more than $230 million in its first year – critics argue that the effect on the local communities outweighs the benefits.

“New Hampshire is the safest state in the country and Nevada has the highest crime rate in the country … It’s a major contributor to our quality of life and results in us having healthy communities and healthy kids. We don’t want to give that up,” said Jim Rubens, director of the Granite State Coalition Against Expanded Gambling. “The money that would come from taxing slots is not enough to compensate from the increases in criminal justice costs, welfare, embezzlement and on down the line.”

Though Rubens points to the continued opposition to gambling legislation held by the New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police, Salem’s Chief Paul Donovan said his department could put the revenue coming from the slots to good use, like funding the construction of a new police station.

“By far, the stuff that is coming across the border right now is far worse to deal with than what we would see at the Rock,” Donovan said. “The Rock has been part of Salem for a hundred years. We will benefit from the Rock getting the slots … The thing that amazes me the most is that people try to compare slots to big casinos in Atlantic City and Nevada. This is not going to be that. I worry more about the drugs and the organized shoplifting gangs.”

Outside of a surge in traffic along the roads in the immediate vicinity of the racetrack and casino, Endy – not a gambler himself – said the community has not seen any negative impact from the Meadows Casino.

“The racetrack has been there so long it’s kind of a fixture, and that softened the impact (of adding a casino) in many ways. People have always been aware that it’s there. We all kind of grew up with it,” Endy said. “I have not heard of any real complaints.”