|
New Hampshire Union Leader Courting casino cash; A budgetary copout September 19, 2007 Lawmakers are studying slot machines at Rockingham Park because they want the tax revenue they presume such a venture would bring in. There is a group of lawmakers that has long wanted such revenue to dispense to favored constituencies. But the hunger for that cash is spreading thanks to the school funding legislation passed this summer.
The state has obligated itself to finance a host of new services, but it has not found the money (around $1 billion a year) to pay the bill. Enter slot machines. We predict that the pro-gambling forces will try to sell their projects by claiming that their revenue can help the state pay for its expanded educational responsibilities.
However, New Hampshire does not need the gamblers' money. It needs to budget better. In Massachusetts, politicians desperately want gambling money to fix their crumbling roads and bridges and pay for schools. Why? Because they are incapable of setting priorities. They fund non-essential programs and services first, leaving core infrastructure to crumble.
We are smarter than that. Because of its low taxes, New Hampshire has always been forced to budget more responsibly than our southern neighbor. But some lawmakers, longing for the spending freedom their Massachusetts counterparts enjoy, hope the education funding crisis that will hit the state next year will finally open the gate to gambling revenue.
The truth, however, is that the state does not need that money. An adequate education can be had for far less. All we have to do to live within our means is set our priorities and budget responsibly.
New Hampshire Union Leader Big money! Don't buy gambling hype September 18, 2007 New Hampshire allows limited gambling, such as bingo and poker, to raise money for charities. Since the law was changed last year to give the state Pari-Mutuel Commission oversight of the games, the number of games has exploded, as has fraud. Many game operators routinely (and miraculously) report that their expenses always add up to 65 percent of revenues, which just happens to be the maximum the law allows them to keep, Pari-Mutuel Executive Director Paul Kelley told the New Hampshire Sunday News. They are cheating charities.
The company that wants to put 3,000 slot machines at Rockingham Park says each machine will raise $365 per day. But a new study by the New England Gaming Research Institute at UMass-Dartmouth found that the slot machines at Connecticut's huge Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos generate $326 per day and $416 per day respectively. Rockingham Park's machines are unlikely to bring in as much as claimed. And it turns out that the company making that claim has a history of exaggerating its revenue estimates.
The UMass-Dartmouth study figured that New Hampshire residents spent about $85 million in Connecticut casinos, raising $11 million for Connecticut's treasury. But it is a big leap of faith to assume that casinos in New Hampshire would keep that money here. Granite Staters would continue to go to the big casinos. Racinos, filled with slot machines, would capture only a bit of that revenue.
Even if New Hampshire allowed a casino, Maine and Massachusetts would follow with their own, cutting into that haul. And then there are the costs. Casinos have to be considered on balance, not just on the money they generate for state coffers. They bring increased crime and addiction and create greater burdens for local and state law enforcement.
By expanding gambling to bring in more revenue, New Hampshire would be selling out a portion of its population for a quick buck. It's a bad deal. Legislators would be wise to resist the temptation that the lure of easy gambling dollars presents.
Portsmouth Herald Pease gambling promise: a
mirage we should resist Fosters Daily Democrat Maine's embarrassment offers a lesson for N.H. Sunday, May 20, 2007 Granite Staters who might be seduced by the lure
of casino-generated tax revenues would do well to learn by the mistake of Maine
lawmakers who have been brought to their knees begging by the owners of the
state's only slot machine parlor. Why did Cummings beg? Money. Penn National pays
the state a 1 percent tax on its gross slot machine income, as well as a 39
percent state tax on its net income and a 3 percent tax to the city, according
to AP. It could be easily argued that lawmakers were foolish to seek an
increase in these numbers given the expansion under way in Bangor. Tripling the
number of machines available to strip gamblers of their wages would mean a
quantum leap in those revenues — even without the state's demand for greater
percentages.
Fosters Daily Democrat Casino gambling: No, no,
another thousand times no
Keene
Sentinel September 21, 2007
For more than a decade, some New Hampshire legislators have been promoting the idea of allowing slot machines in the state’s four ailing racetracks — including the Hinsdale Greyhound Park & OTB. They say slots would save the tracks (which might not be tracks anymore) and raise money to deal with New Hampshire’s highway problems and the state Supreme Court’s constitutional mandate on public education.
State Senator Lou D’Allesandro, a Manchester Democrat, is promising to again bring up the matter of slots when the Legislature reconvenes in January. “What a great time,” he recently enthused to a reporter. “Timing is everything in this life.” There are a few flaws in that argument.
For one thing, the figures don’t add up. The licensing fees and state revenues from a slot deal that has been proposed for New Hampshire by a Nevada gaming company aren’t likely to come anywhere near the billion-dollar annual cost of an adequate education, to say nothing of fixing the crumbling highway infrastructure. And the additional expenses from crime, social disruption and gambling addiction, while impossible to calculate, could put an additional strain on state and local services. So there’s that. Every increase in gambling accessibility poses social risks. There has always been that. But now — talk about timing — the stakes are getting a lot higher. Massachusetts’ Democratic Governor Deval Patrick says he wants the Bay State to authorize three full-fledged gambling casinos south of our border, adding to slots and other games of chance the allure of singers, dancers and less savory enticements of the gambling culture. What a terrible idea.
New Hampshirites like to complain about the Bay State, but most of us admire its cultural achievements and the richness of its educational, scientific, medical and historic institutions. It would be a shame if that proud state decided to go along with Patrick’s tawdry proposal.
And it could be an even greater shame for New Hampshire. Massachusetts casinos would put great pressure on the Granite State to skip the slots debate and jump right into a life-or-death competition over who can set up the flashiest — and tackiest — attractions for people seeking dubious entertainment and easy money along the highways. The quality-of-life consequences of such a race would be debilitating on both sides of the border, but particularly in New Hampshire, which is smaller and has a greater proportion of rural charm to preserve.
“We cannot reject the gambling industry out of hand,” Deval Patrick announced the other day. Let’s hope the New Hampshire and Massachusetts legislatures make a liar out of him.
The Union Leader Bugsy in Berlin: Don't gamble on NH casinos March 2, 2007
ON MONDAY New Hampshire Union Leader columnist John Clayton relayed the story of Maurice "Chunky" Scanlon, a Manchester bookie in the 1940s and '50s. His gambling ties to organized crime endangered his family and neighbors. In 1950 mobsters blew up his Cadillac as it sat in his driveway. Nine years later two armed gunmen broke into his home, held his son at gunpoint and stole a safe. The Lakes Region Greyhound Park in Belmont closed in 2004 after owners and employees were indicted on federal money laundering charges and tied by prosecutors to the New York mafia. In 2005, a Belmont man pleaded guilty to money laundering and drug trafficking. He and 23 others ran a prescription drug smuggling ring stretching to Florida. They laundered money at the greyhound park. And yet big-gambling's proponents ignore the obvious ties to organized crime and continue, year after year, to push expanded gambling. Sen. John Gallus, R-Berlin, has sponsored a bill to allow video gambling in Coos County and put casinos in Berlin and Portsmouth. Sen. Gallus has another bill authorizing the creation of a state-owned casino and another allowing four "economic development casinos." Naturally, the state's revenue from these enterprises is tied to education. Of course, to improve schools or spur economic development, New Hampshire can take other, less socially destructive steps. It does not have to gamble on the big-time gaming industry and the addiction and criminality it spawns. Concord Monitor Three big reasons not to permit slot machines
September 19. 2007 Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick's decision to permit three big casinos to be built in his state, although it still needs legislative approval, has left New Hampshire proponents of expanded gambling drawing to an inside straight. For those who've never gambled, the odds of doing that successfully are lousy.
There are lots of reasons for lawmakers and Gov. John Lynch to reject a Nevada company's proposal to install 3,000 slot machines at Salem's Rockingham Park. We'll start, though, with the most recent. First, the Massachusetts casinos, one of which could be just 40 minutes or so from Rockingham, will be grand affairs. One casino operator, who is also, according to The Boston Globe, one of the world's richest people, wants to build a $3 billion complex with a hotel, convention center and retail stores near the intersection of Interstate 495 and the Massachusetts Turnpike. Presumably, it will offer the classic games of high rollers, roulette, poker, blackjack and craps, as well as video slot machines, the modern version of one-armed bandits.
What will New Hampshire get? Supposedly the return of thoroughbred racing, but the sport of kings has been declining for a quarter-century. There are just too many other ways to be entertained and to gamble. New Hampshire will get third-rate gambling parlors with horse and dog races on TV screens and row upon row of video slot machines, the most addictive of all forms of gambling.
The next most offensive thing about the proposal is the price. Millenium Gaming has offered to pay a $5 million licensing fee to install video slots at Rockingham and another $4.5 million to put them in the state's three dog tracks. It also offered the state 40 percent of the net income from the devices. Millenium's offer to New Hampshire no doubt takes the state's small population into account, but consider this: In a similar deal, the same company offered the state of Pennsylvania $50 million upfront and 54 percent of the take. And Massachusetts expects to get between $600 million and $900 million for the rights to build its three casinos.
The Massachusetts casinos make it anyone's guess how much long-term revenue New Hampshire would see from expanded gambling - or whether that revenue would be enough to offset the crime, bankruptcy, family strife and other social ills that come with it. Glitzy new casinos in Massachusetts only add to the reasons that New Hampshire lawmakers, though always desperate for revenue, have consistently refused to bet the state's future on slot machines. New Hampshire's tracks will draw more locals than tourists, and studies show that the risk of gambling addiction and problems doubles for those living within 50 miles of casinos or the new so-called "racinos" with slots.
New Hampshire spends none of the millions of dollars it's received in settlement money from tobacco companies on smoking prevention and just a pittance of what it makes on alcohol on treatment programs. Why would anyone believe that it would deal adequately with the inevitable increase in gambling addiction that will result from slot machines at the tracks?
Lawmakers shouldn't base their decision solely on the need to pay for public education but do what's best for the quality of life in New Hampshire. And Gov. John Lynch who should lead on a big issue this time, not follow - should say just where he stands now, not at the close of debate.
Concord Monitor Say no to slots: Lynch should act now to kill the effort to expand gambling. January 16, 2005 http://www.cmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050116/REPOSITORY/501160353/1017 John King, a three-term Democratic governor, opened the door a crack. In 1964 he made New Hampshire the first state to approve a lottery. Tickets went on sale on March 12 of that year. Ever since, the gambling lobby and legislators desperate for revenue have pushed for more. Now it's Gov. John Lynch who faces a choice. He could, like his predecessor, Craig Benson, keep his shoulder firmly against the door. Or, like then-governor Jeanne Shaheen, he could embrace gambling as a way to help fund education. Will Lynch be the governor who changes the character of the state by broadening the opportunity to gamble? We hope not. Yet isn't Connecticut raking in all kinds of money from the Indian casinos? Didn't Delaware make a killing when it allowed its racetracks to install video slot machines? Shouldn't New Hampshire, the pioneer in state-sanctioned gambling, take a seat at the table? No, and here's why. Opening the state up to gambling will permanently change its image from a beautiful place for family vacations to a honky-tonk with mountains. Gambling will not be limited, as the owners of the state's four racetracks hope, to their premises. They are dying industries with waning political power. If they get video slot and poker machines, you can bet that some of the state's resorts and hotels will, too. Permitting slot machines at the track would raise revenue for the state, but it would harm, not help, the rest of the tourist industry. All but one of the tracks is on the state's southern border. The money siphoned from people headed north by their machines will be money not spent at the state's restaurants, shops, resorts and hotels. The money taken from New Hampshire residents won't be spent locally. So any fair accounting of the economic benefits of expanded gambling should consider the negative impact on the state's businesses. Addiction rates double within 50 miles of a source of legal slot machines. New Hampshire does a miserable job of responding to the problems created by the vices it profits from, including alcohol and tobacco. In fact, it now spends none of the millions in tobacco settlement money to preventing tobacco use. It would do no better helping addicted gamblers and their families. There's a reason New Hampshire's law enforcement community is unanimous in its opposition to expanded gambling. Crime and social ills like alcoholism, bankruptcy, broken families and suicide will increase. Those costs are seldom honestly reflected when gambling proponents do the math. Gambling will not be as reliable a revenue source as proponents claim. Driven by the sight of dollars flowing over the border to casinos in Connecticut and Rhode Island, the push is on again in Massachusetts to legalize slot machines and casino gambling. A move to legalize them by New Hampshire would guarantee that Massachusetts would follow suit. That would drastically cut into the revenue the state could expect to net. Education money has always been the carrot dangled in front of lawmakers by gambling proponents. The first state lottery was sold as a way to aid schools, and it does - a little. According to the sweepstakes commission, since 1964 the lottery has contributed $856 million to education, including $66.5 million in 2003. To put that in perspective, however, the total cost of public education in New Hampshire is now almost $2.5 billion per year. Gambling is an ancient activity that won't go away. The first gamblers probably scratched a mark on a flat rock and flipped it. We do not believe gambling is immoral. But we do believe that making it easier for people to gamble would be a mistake. Lynch shouldn't hide behind the state's deficit and take a wait-and-see stance. He should make his position on gambling clear now. Nashua Telegraph Legislature should kill plan for video gambling January 27, 2002 Expanded gambling as a way out of New Hampshire's school funding dilemma is back. But as before, it's getting a not-so-warm welcome in the House of Representatives.
Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee voted, 9-8, to recommend killing a bill that would allow 3,900 video slot machines at the state's horse and dog racetracks. In addition, it voted, 9-6, against legislation that would allow a casino in Berlin, the North Country city that's hurting economically because of the closure of the paper mill there.
But this isn't the end of the story. The committee's negative recommendations must be forwarded to the full House for final disposition. The pro-gambling forces in the Legislature, which have an especially strong presence in the Senate, are linking the video gambling bill to the state's economic woes. It's framed as the magic bullet to solve New Hampshire's chronic budget problems.
But gambling proponents usually do that. Pass the bill, and funding for this or that program will bean issue of the pass, they say. Gambling sells better when part of the proceeds can be earmarked for education, tax reduction or some other social good.
However, the racetracks want this bill to pass in the worst way because horse and dog racing is falling out of favor and their business is suffering. Gamblers these days have many other ways to spend their betting dollars. So part of this gambling push is a bailout for the tracks. We've advocated against expanding gambling in the past. We're still in favor of rejecting more gambling as a "solution" for needed funds.
With gambling comes social ills. And New Hampshire already has plenty of those, and scarce funds to deal with them. The Ways and Means Committee was correct in rejecting expanded gambling. Lawmakers should heed its recommendations and reject the video gambling and casino legislation.
Laconia Citizen Too much of a gamble January 20, 2005 http://www.citizen.com/January2005/01.20.05/comment/editorial_01.20_05.asp Gov. John Lynch says he is willing to consider expanded gambling as a way to raise new money for the state, which is under pressure to confront spending challenges, particularly for education and social services. But news that two upper-tier officials of the Lakes Region Greyhound Park in Belmont have been indicted on federal charges is bound to give any effort to open the doors to more forms of gambling at the state’s four racetracks a chilly reception in the corridors of Statehouse. The Governor is quick to stress that he is far from ready to jump on the gambling bandwagon — he says he wants clear evidence that gambling will not hurt the state’s quality of life before taking a position on the matter. But last week’s indictment of Richard Hart and Jonathan Broome, the Belmont track’s general manager and assistant general manager, respectively, are certain to sway any discussion of the matter. It is important to note that an indictment is not an indication of guilt. And Belmont track owner Allan Hart, Richard Hart’s uncle, has said that neither he nor the track are under investigation by federal authorities. These disclaimers notwithstanding, there can be no escaping the reality that in the past when the Legislature has dealt with proposals to expand gambling — whether it be slot machines at the state’s racetracks or casinos at grand resort hotels — one of the strongest voices against such a move has come from the law enforcement community which has argued that such a development would invariably let various "undesirable elements" such as organized crime, prostitution and drug dealing gain an even stronger foothold in the state. On the other hand it is an equally powerful reality that, since the state often sees itself strapped for cash, the anticipated revenue windfall expanded gambling would bring to the state’s treasury is tantalizing. Gov. Lynch may want to get a fresh examination of the pros and cons of legalizing more forms of gambling in the state. But it is unrealistic, especially in light of these recent allegations of money laundering and illicit gambling, to expect lawmakers to have anything approaching an detached discussion. The state’s Pari-Mutuel Commission has asked the state Attorney General’s Office to conduct its own investigation into whether the Belmont track was in any way involved into the alleged dealings of Richard Hart and Broome and Gov. Lynch has called for a state investigation into the men’s activities. It has been and continues to be our view that increased gambling will do the state more harm than good. In light of recent events expanded gambling is more of a crapshoot than ever. Keene Sentinel Gambling again January 10, 2005
Gambling wasn’t something Tom Eaton intended to bring up at a Statehouse press conference last week. “That was at the bottom of the list of anything I wanted to talk about,” he says. But someone asked him about putting video-poker machines at horse and dog tracks in the state, and the Republican Senate president answered that he likes the idea. So here we all are, talking about gambling again. It’s a timely exercise. State Senator Louis D’Allesandro, a Manchester Democrat, is working on a bill that would allow slot machines at the tracks in Belmont, Hinsdale, Salem and Seabrook, and perhaps at the state’s grand hotels. He says he thinks his plan could pass this year. Eaton has his doubts about that. But he says, “Surveys show that a majority of the public, 65 percent, would approve it, and I think we still have to look at options.” He’s obviously been doing some thinking on the subject. He says the D’Allesandro plan could raise about $200 million a year, an attractive prospect for a state facing a potential $300 million deficit in the next biennium. He also notes that the Legislature and the public at large oppose a sales or an income tax. And the new governor, Democrat John Lynch, has promised to veto any such tax. Lynch is skeptical about expanded gambling, but he hasn’t made any veto promises. Where does this flurry of public comment leave the video-poker plan? Just about where it has been for the past decade or so: on the back burner, but simmering briskly. Former governor Jeanne Shaheen liked the idea. So did her fellow Democrat, Junie Blaisdell, Eaton’s predecessor representing Senate District 10. New Hampshire’s new House speaker, Republican Douglas Scamman, is one of many in the Legislature who have warned against expanded gambling. Some opponents — including this newspaper — have pointed out that over-reliance on gambling has had frightening and costly social consequences in other states. For example, video poker was widespread in South Carolina from the mid-1980s until 1999, when the state banned the machines. Studies in various parts of the country have shown that gambling can breed crime, social disintegration and economic dislocation. All of these developments are ruinously expensive to deal with. Eventually, the people of New Hampshire may have to make a stark choice. This state’s current method of paying for education — the local property tax — is obviously unfair and, in the plain language of the state Supreme Court, unconstitutional. Yet broad-based taxes to spread the burden more equitably are routinely rejected. So, some people argue: Why not roll the dice and allow more gambling? Even D’Allesandro admits that increased gambling could lead to more crime, gambling addiction and other difficulties, but he says: “If you do everything responsibly, you’re in pretty good shape.” True enough. Then again, if you do everything responsibly, you’re likely to end up spending a fortune. Valley News Changing OddsAugust 30, 2005 What's amazing, really, isn't that advocates of expanded gambling in New Hampshire refuse to take no for an answer, but that lawmakers haven't given in to their almost nonstop pressure. In a state that is chronically short of cash and not averse to profiting from people's vices, the temptation has to be strong. So far, though, it hasn’t been strong enough. Two new players have entered the scene, and some suspect that they'll ratchet up the pressure. Earlier this month, Millennium Gaming, a Las Vegas-based casino management company, secured an option to buy Rockingham Park, a horse track in Salem. And Marlin Torguson, a developer of casinos in Mississippi, is pursuing the acquisition of the Lakes Region Greyhound Park, a track that closed earlier this year. Because revenues have been declining at the state's tracks in recent years and few people expect that to change anytime soon, speculation has centered on the prospective owners' future plans. “All of a sudden, there's two new entities coming into the state who may see something the rest of us don't,” said Ted Connors, chairman of the state Pari-Mutuel Commission, which regulates the racing industry. “I think they're hoping to create an opportunity, and it'll be interesting to see how the legislature reacts.” So far, the legislature has resisted entreaties -- many coming from track owners -- to allow video slots at the tracks as a way to expand their customer base. Such a proposal didn't come close to getting majority support in the legislature earlier this year. Those who favor expanded gambling are quick to emphasize that they're not asking New Hampshire to do anything new; gambling has been legal in the state for many years, at the tracks and through lottery games. They also argue that the state may not be able to save its tracks and the state revenue they produce without some changes: The growth of the casino industry and Internet gambling pose too much of a challenge. All true, but legislators also know that casino gambling -- including the diluted version offered through video slot machines -- represents something very different from the wagering now available in the state. Police chiefs have warned lawmakers that the more intensive forms of gambling invite criminal activity and the social problems associated with gambling addiction. New Hampshire casinos might prove an attraction to some out-of-state visitors, but they would also undermine the state's image as a place that people visit to ski, hike, fish, hunt and otherwise enjoy outdoor recreation. That's the state’s real gold mine and deserves to be zealously protected. For better and worse, New Hampshire legislators have established a reputation for being hard to budge on certain core issues. Opposition to gambling is one of the areas where legislators' obstinacy has worked to the state's benefit. Here’s hoping that they continue to hold the line, no matter how much pressure is applied.
The Hampton Union Resist the lure of legalized gambling January 7, 2005 http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/hampton/01072005/editoria/57864.htm
Like sharks in the water drawn to the smell of blood, legalized gambling advocates are drawn to states facing multimillion-dollar budget deficits. With New Hampshire projecting a budget shortfall of up to $300 million in the coming year, champions of gambling have been lining up to see if this will be the year they hit the jackpot. A Manchester state senator, with the support of the Senate president, is again pushing for gambling, in the form of video poker at the state’s four racetracks. In our view, despite the momentary financial challenges facing the state, gambling remains a longshot. We stand with our state’s police chiefs, religious leaders and civic groups who have quite clearly stated that gambling would take away far more than it would give to our state’s quality of life. We expect that the racetracks, including Seabrook Greyhound Park, will lobby hard for passage of video gambling. And we have heard rumblings that some developers would love to see gaming at Hampton Beach. No doubt New Hampshire will be the site of heated efforts on behalf of gambling. But we hope that New Hampshire, like Maine and Massachusetts, will recognize that a state usually does no better than an individual when it tries to solve its fiscal problems through games of chance.
|