Casino Bill Written by Millennium Lobbyist
At yesterday's work session on the 2-casino monopoly bill, a Ways & Means committee member announced for all to hear that the bill language was written by a Millennium lobbyist, specifically the Rath law firm.
Warning. Casino gambling states almost always see this pattern: first comes control by gambling interests over the legislative and regulatory process, then comes political corruption. Check out recent gambling-related political corruption scandals in Pennsylvania and Alabama.
Pick out the faces in the photo if you doubt that gambling interests already dominate our legislative process relative to casino bills. At yesterday's Ways & Means subcommittee work session, you see all paid gambling industry people, no citizens (save yours truly and one Union Leader reporter):
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| Casino Lobbyists Pack the Hearing |
North Country Casino Backers Thrown Under the Bus
The new casino bill (amendment 2011-2628h) would result in de facto monopoly awards to 2 border location casinos by raising the license fee to $50 million for both and removing the requirement that the two casinos be 100 miles apart. North Country casino backers, you've just been thrown under the bus.
The 2-casino monopoly bill is our most serious House fight in several years. The bill is now backed by the Chairs of House Finance and House Ways & Means, by Millennium Gaming (co-owner of the Salem track), and Green Meadow (the Hudson casino proposal).
Let's Not Forget Where Casino Taxes Come From
Legislators salivating about a big new chunk of money from the casino tax should remember where the money comes from. Most of it comes from a form of gambling unlike any we have here now: slot machines purposefully designed to addict gamblers who become unable to stop themselves from exhausting their family financial resources and in turn destroying their lives.
According the NH Gaming Study Commission, legalizing even one casino in Salem or Hudson would create an additional 7,000-14,000 New Hampshire gambling addicts and problem gamblers. Each gambling addict typically impacts the lives of ten other people, via divorce, family violence, child abuse, bankruptcy, theft, job loss, and embezzlement, etc. One in five of the new addicts - an additional one thousand of our neighbors - will attempt suicide as a result of a decision to impose this casino tax. The casino tax is a tax that destroys human lives.
Kyrgyzstan Parliament Bans Gambling
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15116452
29 September 2011
Kyrgyzstan's parliament has voted to ban gambling, meaning casinos will close throughout the country. The bill was passed with almost no opposition, following repeated warnings from politicians that gambling has become a major social problem ... Gambling debts, other gambling businesses and gambling machines will also be outlawed ... Residents tell stories of poor people getting into debt or teenagers stealing from home to fund their gambling addictions.
