Rooney slams gaming industry on ’60 Minutes’

It probably wasn’t too much of a surprise that curmudgeon commentator Andy Rooney took off on the gaming industry Sunday night on the CBS News television show “60 Minutes.”

What may have been surprising was that he launched a verbal tirade on casino employees.

“I mean who's best for this country, a machinist at an automobile plant in Detroit or a blackjack dealer in Las Vegas?” Rooney said during a commentary on gaming industry revenues declining in 2009.

Rooney cited the Washington, D.C.-based American Gaming Association’s annual "State of the States" report, which showed commercial casinos in 13 states collected $30.74 billion from gamblers in 2009, a 5.5 percent decrease compared to $32.54 billion collected in 2008.

Rooney said that because of high unemployment, people are gambling less.

“There's some good things about everything, I guess,” Rooney said.

Rooney said he would rather see Americans spend money on products produced by U.S.-based manufacturing companies, not casinos.

“Gambling produces nothing,” Rooney said.