As James Browning of Common Cause/Pennsylvania warned the New Hampshire gaming study commission last week, in every state where casinos are legalized, the gambling industry dominates and often corrupts state politics. Even some who have blithely ignored each of our other 22 reasons to oppose slots casinos have expressed serious concerns about this warning.
Millennium Gaming, the Las Vegas casino company that has already spent a rumored $30 million trying to buy its way into New Hampshire, spent last week hammering home Mr. Browning's point. Millennium and co-owner Bill Wortman bought and paid for several secret free dinners for selected legislators, dinners closed to opponents and the press -- until outed by the Portsmouth Herald.
So, what's the casino lobby trying to hide? That its case will not stand up to sunlight.
Casino supporters, if you really think legalized slots are defensible policy, tell Bill Wortman to come out from behind his wall of gambling money and debate the facts in open forum before the New Hampshire public.
Media coverage of Millennium's attempt to lure NH legislators with secret, free dinners:
News:
Fosters: Fine food for gambling thoughts: Millennium Gaming head woos lawmakers in Exeter
Fosters: Gambling meetings draw rebuke
Fosters: Lawmakers defend their meeting with gaming official in Rochester
Editorials:
New Hampshire Union Leader: Sugar-coated bandits: Slots for charities?
[F]ew New Hampshire politicians have been led away in handcuffs for crimes committed in their capacity as lawmakers. Will that change if the state opens its doors to casinos, racinos and other forms of widespread legalized gambling? Experience elsewhere suggests it's a distinct possibility.
More worrisome, however, is the likelihood that the gambling industry's financial clout will allow it to overwhelm the resources of its opponents. But most worrisome of all is the certainty that once a state opens its doors to expanded gambling and becomes dependent on its revenue - revenue that declined in almost every state that relies on casinos and lotteries to help fund government - there's no turning back.
