http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,585038143,00.html
Gaming foe says 'we're winning the war' to slow trend
By Steve Weigand
Sacramento Bee
LAS VEGAS — Americans spent $68.7 billion on gambling in 2002, the last year for which figures are available. That's about 1 percent of the nation's entire personal annual income — and more than was spent on shoes or furniture or car insurance or books, movies, CDs, DVDs, cassettes or Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola combined.
Nevertheless, even as states with gambling consider new ways to expand the controversial industry, the Rev. Tom Grey, executive director of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, believes "we're winning the war."
All but two states — Utah and Hawaii — already have some form of legal gambling. And spending on legal gambling in those that do has doubled in the past decade. The index of publicly traded gambling company stocks outperformed the market as a whole by about 2-to-1 in 2003. A new cable television network devoted solely to gambling-related shows is set for launch this year.
Grey, a Methodist minister from Rockford, Ill., who has spent most of the past 10 years doing battle with the forces of gambling, points to a different set of statistics.
According to his numbers, which are not vigorously disputed by the industry, 42 of 45 legislative or electoral efforts to expand gambling in the United States at the state or local level last year were defeated.
"The tide has turned," he said. "I know of organized (anti-gambling) groups in at least 22 states where people are saying, 'This thing is out of control, and it has to stop.' The surge in gambling over the past few years is ending, because people are realizing what a bad bet it is."
If Grey is right, the tide turned in a year during which conditions would seem to have favored the pro-gambling forces. State and local governments were desperate for revenue sources that didn't involve the word "tax." The job market was looking for a boost. It was a non-election year in most of the country, which meant legislators could vote for gambling proposals without facing anti-gambling voting blocs.
"If there ever was a year where we should have seen a substantial expansion of gaming, it was 2003," said Bill Eadington, executive director of the Institute for Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno. "But virtually nothing happened. . . . I expect that 2004 will be similar."
Industry observers attribute the general lack of expansion to several factors. One is the effectiveness of low-budget but well-organized groups such as Grey's in kicking up enough of a fuss at local levels to push gambling interests toward greener pastures.
Another, in Grey's words, was "pure greed," not on the part of the industry but on the part of politicians looking for a source of "painless" revenue. In several states, gambling proposals died not from lack of support but because legislators could not agree on how much to demand as the state's share or how to divide it among state and local programs.
"It's killing the golden goose before it even hatches," said Frank Fahrenkopf, president of the American Gaming Association. "There is an upper limit on what any industry can pay in taxes, and it's well below the 60 percent they wanted in Maryland or Pennsylvania, or the 70 percent the governor was talking about in Illinois," said Fahrenkopf, a former national chairman of the Republican Party.
And then there is the curious contrary nature of gambling economics: When times get tough, gambling prospers; when things improve, the gambling tide ebbs.
For instance, said Bill Thompson, a professor of public administration at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a leading expert on gambling, the Great Depression of the 1930s gave birth to the re-establishment of horse racing. The economic doldrums of the 1970s saw a proliferation of state-run lotteries and the establishment of casino gambling in Atlantic City, N.J. The downturn in the early 1990s resulted in riverboat casinos in a half-dozen Midwest and Southern states.
"If the economy is turning around, and it seems to be," Thompson said, "it will be tougher for the industry to open new markets . . . but that doesn't mean the overall amount of gambling won't increase. It will. And the industry will always keep looking for new markets."
Many of the states that saw gambling expansion efforts fail last year are likely to be revisited by proposals this year.
"We'll keep trying," said Florida state Sen. Steven Geller, who led failed efforts last year to allow slot machines at Florida racetracks. "My state is becoming rapidly noncompetitive in the racing industry because states that have slot machines at the tracks can offer bigger purses and are luring away our horses and stables. Simply put, we can't exist without slot machines if we want to maintain a major racing industry."
Geller said that while the votes existed in the Florida legislature to approve "racinos," the effort was blocked by Gov. Jeb Bush.
"We have three more years of Governor Bush," he said. "Unless the governor comes to his senses and sees the light, I guess we will have to wait him out."
While it waits for new markets to open, the gambling industry is looking for ways to reinvent itself where it is already established.
In Iowa, the state lottery is introducing a new twist on the most basic of games. For $20, a player will get the equivalent of 20 "scratch-off" lottery tickets contained in an electronic game the size of a credit card. After the 20 games are played, the card totals up the winnings, if any, and the player redeems the card.
In California, Indian casino tribes that might forgo negotiating with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to expand the 2,000-slot-machine-per-tribe limit are looking at "Class II" games that closely resemble slots but don't require state approval.
And even if gambling doesn't expand in 2004, it's almost certain not to retract, at least not at the state level. According to professor Thompson, the last time a state's voters repealed an existing form of gambling was in 1948, when Iowa did away with the state's slot machines.
"When it comes to government-sanctioned gambling," Thompson said, "once you've got it, you've got it."
Gaming foe says 'we're winning the war' to slow trend
By Steve Weigand
Sacramento Bee
LAS VEGAS — Americans spent $68.7 billion on gambling in 2002, the last year for which figures are available. That's about 1 percent of the nation's entire personal annual income — and more than was spent on shoes or furniture or car insurance or books, movies, CDs, DVDs, cassettes or Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola combined.
Nevertheless, even as states with gambling consider new ways to expand the controversial industry, the Rev. Tom Grey, executive director of the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, believes "we're winning the war."
All but two states — Utah and Hawaii — already have some form of legal gambling. And spending on legal gambling in those that do has doubled in the past decade. The index of publicly traded gambling company stocks outperformed the market as a whole by about 2-to-1 in 2003. A new cable television network devoted solely to gambling-related shows is set for launch this year.
Grey, a Methodist minister from Rockford, Ill., who has spent most of the past 10 years doing battle with the forces of gambling, points to a different set of statistics.
According to his numbers, which are not vigorously disputed by the industry, 42 of 45 legislative or electoral efforts to expand gambling in the United States at the state or local level last year were defeated.
"The tide has turned," he said. "I know of organized (anti-gambling) groups in at least 22 states where people are saying, 'This thing is out of control, and it has to stop.' The surge in gambling over the past few years is ending, because people are realizing what a bad bet it is."
If Grey is right, the tide turned in a year during which conditions would seem to have favored the pro-gambling forces. State and local governments were desperate for revenue sources that didn't involve the word "tax." The job market was looking for a boost. It was a non-election year in most of the country, which meant legislators could vote for gambling proposals without facing anti-gambling voting blocs.
"If there ever was a year where we should have seen a substantial expansion of gaming, it was 2003," said Bill Eadington, executive director of the Institute for Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno. "But virtually nothing happened. . . . I expect that 2004 will be similar."
Industry observers attribute the general lack of expansion to several factors. One is the effectiveness of low-budget but well-organized groups such as Grey's in kicking up enough of a fuss at local levels to push gambling interests toward greener pastures.
Another, in Grey's words, was "pure greed," not on the part of the industry but on the part of politicians looking for a source of "painless" revenue. In several states, gambling proposals died not from lack of support but because legislators could not agree on how much to demand as the state's share or how to divide it among state and local programs.
"It's killing the golden goose before it even hatches," said Frank Fahrenkopf, president of the American Gaming Association. "There is an upper limit on what any industry can pay in taxes, and it's well below the 60 percent they wanted in Maryland or Pennsylvania, or the 70 percent the governor was talking about in Illinois," said Fahrenkopf, a former national chairman of the Republican Party.
And then there is the curious contrary nature of gambling economics: When times get tough, gambling prospers; when things improve, the gambling tide ebbs.
For instance, said Bill Thompson, a professor of public administration at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a leading expert on gambling, the Great Depression of the 1930s gave birth to the re-establishment of horse racing. The economic doldrums of the 1970s saw a proliferation of state-run lotteries and the establishment of casino gambling in Atlantic City, N.J. The downturn in the early 1990s resulted in riverboat casinos in a half-dozen Midwest and Southern states.
"If the economy is turning around, and it seems to be," Thompson said, "it will be tougher for the industry to open new markets . . . but that doesn't mean the overall amount of gambling won't increase. It will. And the industry will always keep looking for new markets."
Many of the states that saw gambling expansion efforts fail last year are likely to be revisited by proposals this year.
"We'll keep trying," said Florida state Sen. Steven Geller, who led failed efforts last year to allow slot machines at Florida racetracks. "My state is becoming rapidly noncompetitive in the racing industry because states that have slot machines at the tracks can offer bigger purses and are luring away our horses and stables. Simply put, we can't exist without slot machines if we want to maintain a major racing industry."
Geller said that while the votes existed in the Florida legislature to approve "racinos," the effort was blocked by Gov. Jeb Bush.
"We have three more years of Governor Bush," he said. "Unless the governor comes to his senses and sees the light, I guess we will have to wait him out."
While it waits for new markets to open, the gambling industry is looking for ways to reinvent itself where it is already established.
In Iowa, the state lottery is introducing a new twist on the most basic of games. For $20, a player will get the equivalent of 20 "scratch-off" lottery tickets contained in an electronic game the size of a credit card. After the 20 games are played, the card totals up the winnings, if any, and the player redeems the card.
In California, Indian casino tribes that might forgo negotiating with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to expand the 2,000-slot-machine-per-tribe limit are looking at "Class II" games that closely resemble slots but don't require state approval.
And even if gambling doesn't expand in 2004, it's almost certain not to retract, at least not at the state level. According to professor Thompson, the last time a state's voters repealed an existing form of gambling was in 1948, when Iowa did away with the state's slot machines.
"When it comes to government-sanctioned gambling," Thompson said, "once you've got it, you've got it."
