Channeling Me

What a wonderful idea!

Maryland should consider legalizing "true casinos" that could include table games like blackjack and craps instead of just slot machines, a member of the state's Video Lottery Facility Location Commission said Friday.

D. Bruce Poole, an attorney from Washington County and former member of the House of Delegates, suggested the idea during a meeting of the panel. To legalize table games like blackjack or craps in Maryland, the state's voters would have to approve a constitutional amendment.

Poole cited not only the state's current fiscal problems due to the recession, but also Maryland's large structural deficit, in which the state is regularly spending more money than it receives in revenues, as reasons why the state should think bigger about expanded gambling.

"We need to talk about how to get ahead of the curve ... because we have a dire need for revenue," Poole said at a commission meeting convened to suggest potential changes to the state's slot machine law.

Poole also noted that neighboring states already have approved table games or have started moving in that direction.

"The other competitors are simply outstripping us," Poole said. "They're ahead of us."

West Virginia already has approved table games.

Poole also said table games are likely to attract wealthier clientele to Maryland facilities, where they could spend money not only on gambling but also on hotels and restaurants.

"I don't want to see the poor milked, but I wouldn't mind milking the wealthy," Poole said.

Why didn't somebody think of this before.....oh that's right. I've been championing the idea of table gaming for years because of the obvious fact that slots would not work to solve the budget problems that they were allegedly going to fix. I'm glad somebody has finally started to listen, even though the legalization of table games will take another constitutional amendment adopted by the voters of the state of Maryland due to the fiasco involved with adopting the slots amendment.

Now, maybe we can stop pretending slots are the solution to our budget woes, and take proactive steps to add gambling options that will actually produce revenue for the state...

Screwing the Pooch

The Anne Arundel County Council approved the zoning change that will allow slot machines at Arundel Mills Mall tonight. This is, of course, a completely ridiculous zoning change that will allow a slot machine parlor to be constructed in an area of the county that not only doesn't want slots, but also has enough problems with crime at Arundel Mills itself to deal with without the construction of a new, larger magnet for petty crime.

The bigger context of this story, however, is once again how badly Governor O'Malley and Maryland Democrats screwed up when they approved the Constitutional change that allowed for slot machines in the first place.

The County Council was basically pressured into allowing slot machines at Arundel Mills. There is no way around it. Pressure was coming from the Governor's office, from Legislative leaders, from County Executive John Leopold (once he decided that he was for slots after opposing them for so many years).

But why was so much pressure exerted on the County Council? It wasn't because Arundel Mills was the optimal location for slot machines, particularly in light of the fact that one of the ostensible reasons slots became part of the conversation was to save horse racing. No, the real reason the Council was pressured into the Arundel Mills site is because of the boneheaded decision to allow slot parlors in Anne Arundel County only within two miles on either side of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. Had the Arundel Mills site failed, then no slots parlor in Anne Arundel County would have been able to open without the adoption of another Constitutional Amendment changing the location requirement (one of the many reasons that I was against the amendment despite being pro-gambling).

Now Marylanders, and particularly those folks in the Hanover/Jessup area, are stuck with a slots parlor nobody wants because Governor O'Malley and General Assembly leaders didn't have the moxie to adopt a slots bill on their own without passing the buck on to the voters of Maryland. What a sad, sad display showing the ramifications of leaders who take no responsibility.

The irony of course; table gaming is coming to Charles Town, probably rendering a lot of this conversation moot and sending a lot of Maryland's gambling dollars to West Virginia....

The Brian Griffiths Minute: 05-14-2009

For more info on this story, click here.

Prescience

So out first proposed changed to the slots law is already in the hopper:

A Baltimore County lawmaker is proposing slot-machine gambling at Maryland's major airport, but Gov. Martin O'Malley called the casino a "bad idea," limiting its chances at a time of slots-related buyer's remorse in Annapolis.

Del. Eric M. Bromwell's House Bill 777 -- the airplane-related number is a coincidence -- would add Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport to the list of locations for the casino licenses approved by voters last year.

The bill, co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of 11 Baltimore County and city lawmakers, would allow 3,000 slots in the terminal area.

The idea is to separate air travelers from their cash while they wait to board airplanes, said Bromwell, a Baltimore County Democrat. "If you're looking to capture revenues from outside of the state," he said, "we're talking about people from all over the country and all over the world that land in BWI."

Now, this is actually a reasonable idea and I actually have no qualms with the idea of putting slots at BWI. No it doesn't exactly make for a slot machine destination, but it's a better use of some of the empty spaces of the airport than they are now.

So what's the problem? This:

The idea would require a voter-ratified amendment to the Maryland Constitution, which the lawmaker has also proposed.

That's right, because of the knuckleheaded way Democrats dealt with slots, we'll have to go through the entire constitutional amendment rigmarole again. But....we knew that was going to happen:

The fact of the matter is that such language adopted in the Constitution will make it nearly impossible to correct any shortcomings with slots, particularly with slot parlor locations, once it is ensconced in the Constitution. At that point, If zoning becomes an issue as the Amendment allows, there is no useful way to fix it; any changes would also need to be adopted as Constitutional Amendments and subjected to another referendum to state voters. That’s no way to make public policy.

And it's still no way to make public policy. Instead of a simple fix to a simple law, slots language being ensconced in the Constitution means 2010 is going to be a repeat of 2008. Nobody wants to live through that, but in order to save slots from becoming a complete boondoggle, Democrats may be forced to fight the fight once more.

I look forward to the day when we have competent representation in Annapolis....maybe then it won't be so easy to predict their failures.

You mean O'Malley lied to us?

Yeah, I know that O'Malley fibbing would be inconceivable. But remember how O'Malley and his slots supporters said that by adopting the slots amendment we could turn Maryland into the land of milk, honey, and free money? Well....

As they prepare to open bids for slots licenses today, Maryland officials are casting a wary eye on Kansas, hoping that recent history will not be repeated.

In Kansas, two gambling development companies won the rights to build "destination casinos" near Kansas City and in the southeastern part of the state - projects that the state was relying on for an economic boost. But in the face of the recession, the companies have withdrawn their bids, leaving Kansas officials hanging, and delaying the flow of gambling dollars.....

....As in Maryland, Kansas saw the legalization of casinos as a way to stem the flow of gambling dollars out of state and to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue.

"There was a feeling that there was a lot of money leaving Kansas that we would like to keep here," said Stephen Martino, executive director of the Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission, which recently announced layoffs because of the stalled casino initiative. Kansans now gamble aboard Missouri riverboats and in Oklahoma tribal casinos, as well as in Iowa and Colorado.

In 2007, the Kansas Legislature passed a measure authorizing slots parlors at greyhound and horse tracks, and full-scale casinos at four "gaming zones" across the state. The winning proposals, selected by a commission, were grandly conceived....

....As of last month, all three projects had been withdrawn, casualties of the economy. Of the four winning proposals, only the smallest - an $88 million casino in Dodge City - is moving forward. No slots parlors at racetracks have materialized.

Now, this legislation in Kansas passed long before the people of Maryland were given the opportunity to vote on the slots amendment. And long before the people of Maryland voted on this proposal, Kansas' gaming enterprise was heading towards its inevitable doom due to a deflating economy and competition from surrounding states.

Gee, I don't know of anywhere else such a paradigm might exist. Or even find a worse predicament due to the expansion of gaming opportunities.

But, be that as it may, slots supporters (and the mainstream media, of course) found it completely unnecessary and inconvenient to talk about the fact that Kansas did not find their financial panacea through the slots industry. And all of that would not bother me (being pro-gambling and what not) had it not been for the fact that O'Malley sold his reckless spending and fiscal shenanigans to the populace under the false pretext that slots revenues were going to save the day. Here, we have a populace sold a bill of O'Malleynomic nonsense when the Governor and his cronies willingly and knowingly oversold the potential economic impact of slots licenses.

But hey, it's not like we've ever been able to trust O'Malley anyway.....

Delaware Makes their Move

It was only a matter of time after we passed the slots amendment here in Maryland that Delaware upped the ante:

Before Maryland sees a penny from slot machines, Delaware may up the ante in the regional race for gaming revenues by approving sports betting at its three racinos as soon as this year.

That could mean less money than anticipated for education, the thoroughbred industry and other beneficiaries of legalized gambling in Maryland, prompting fresh criticism of slots, which voters approved in November.

I've said for a long time that expecting slots machines to be the panacea for all of our fiscal woes was not a very convincing argument, and that the expansion of slot machine gambling into Maryland was merely going to further divide and existing pie than create new revenue for Maryland; and even bigger problem now that we have seen the downturn in the national economy. Since Maryland's slots revenue was clearly going to crimp upon Delaware's revenue, it was only a logical and natural extension to expect them to go in a different direction, and they wisely went in a direction (sports gambling) that other states are prohibited to exploit.

Obviously, Governor O'Malley and his cabal of slots supporters clearly overstated, exaggerated, or lied (depending on your perspective) the economic impact that slot machines were going to have here in Maryland. That is the only way that they were able to convince so many Maryland voters to adopt this cockamamie, poorly conceived policy. Unfortunately, now that the slots legislation has been ensconced in our State Constitution, we have little recourse in correcting this bad decision, so it will be left to Governor O'Malley and the leadership of the General Assembly to responsibly manage our state's finances for once...

Pro-Gambling, Anti-Slots Amendment

Of all of the people in Maryland’s blogospohere, I have probably been one of, if not the, most vocal proponents of the expansion of gambling in Maryland. And not just the addition of slots, but also my long-standing support of table gaming here in Maryland.

All that being said, I am voting no on the slots referendum.

The reason that I am voting no is quite simple; the language contained in the Constitutional Amendment has no business being in the actual constitution. I go back to what I wrote last November during the Special Session:

And that's the problem with the slots plan as currently proposed. Making it a Constitutional Amendment will artificially limit the location of slots parlors to certain jurisdictions or, in the cases of one of the plans floating out there, limiting them to certain geographic coordinates within municipalities or defined areas. That is not the point of a Constitutional document. This amendment goes into specific details about plans that would make the location of slots parlors difficult or impossible to change since any change to those locations would require the approval of the voters.

A Constitutional Amendment on slots, at least one as specific as the legislators are currently discussing, is a problem hatched by legislators to address a concern the voters really don't have. The voters want the legislators to deal with the issues. The legislators want to pass the buck the voters. Ultimately, the legislative leadership is abdicating its responsibility to lead, and in doing so handcuffing whatever potential profit the state may have from slots revenue given the constraints of using a Constitutional Amendment as a change agent (and as political cover)...

And I stand by that still. The fact of the matter is that such language adopted in the Constitution will make it nearly impossible to correct any shortcomings with slots, particularly with slot parlor locations, once it is ensconced in the Constitution. At that point, If zoning becomes an issue as the Amendment allows, there is no useful way to fix it; any changes would also need to be adopted as Constitutional Amendments and subjected to another referendum to state voters. That’s no way to make public policy.

On top of Constitutional concerns, the bill as stated is just bad policy and bad politics. Table gaming, not slots is what is needed in order to create gambling revenues in the state (a conclusion even Baltimore City was able to reach). And what’s of even greater concern is the amount of corruption that we have already seen this amendment bring. Clearly, the slot parlor locations determined by the Amendment are no accident, because legislative and Democratic leaders know exactly who is supposed to operate these parlors and win these licenses. Combine that with the buying and selling of legislators we saw from back in the Special Session, and you already know what kind of enterprise O’Malley and Company have created.

Like many, I am pro-gambling, but I cannot in good conscience vote for a poorly written, poorly conceived idea just because it moves this ball forward. I’m voting no, and anybody who supports the expansion of gambling in a logical and constructive manner should do the same…

Mayoral Task Forces states the obvious

A Baltimore Mayoral Task Force has come to an obvious conclusion; table gaming, not slots, is where the money is:

A mayoral task force report says one of the best long-term ways to reduce Baltimore's highest-in-the-state property tax rate would be to use revenue from legalized gambling - not just the slot machines currently under debate but full-scale casinos.

State leaders have spent a decade debating slot machine gambling, only to decide to let citizens settle the issue in November's election. Table games have long been considered a political non-starter in Maryland.

One of the best things for the City of Baltimore could be the proposed 17-cent across the board Property Tax cut for all residents of Baltimore.

As somebody who has long been a proponent of table gaming instead of just legalizing slots, I think that this is a step in the positive direction. However, the likelihood of such table gaming happening in Baltimore (or any other locale in Maryland) anytime soon is pretty dim. This is something that is rather unfortunate, when you consider that table gaming can produce jobs, tourism, and revenue to the city of Baltimore and a state of Maryland in a way that does not pillage the pocketbooks of Maryland taxpayers. It's just unfortunate that nobody in Annapolis wants to look at such a common sense alternative...