Gambling panel urges slowdown in new casinos, lotteries

Thursday, June 3, 1999 | 3:15 a.m.

The federally appointed panel also recommended curbing political contributions by the gambling industry and banning betting on college sports.

Membership ranged from casino industry figures to James Dobson, president of the conservative group Focus on the Family, and on many key recommendations the panel was divided.

It voted 5-4, for example, for language urging states to consider a moratorium on new expansion of lotteries and casinos.

However, the National Gambling Impact Study Commission unanimously called on insurance companies and managed care providers to cover treatment plans for pathological gamblers.

The panel could not reach consensus on the booming gambling industry's impact on American society, and said more research was needed on that question.

"We are going to wind up having accomplished more than people expected," said commissioner Richard Leone. The report will be presented to Congress, the White House, state governors and Indian tribes.

At its final meeting, the commission struggled over Indian reservation casinos, which in the past decade have developed into the fastest-growing segment of America's gambling boom.

The only American Indian on the panel, Alaska businessman Robert Loescher, said the draft report overstated the potential spread of Indian casinos and understated gambling's unique ability to help tribes make money.

Growth is limited by the number of reservations close to well-populated cities, Loescher said.

Commissioner John Wilhelm disagreed. "Any time you have an interstate highway and a piece of land, you can grow," said Wilhelm, national president of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union.

Loescher did press successfully for a sentence in the report declaring that the commission found no evidence "suggesting any viable approach to economic development across the broad spectrum of Indian country, in the absence of gaming."

On Wednesday the panel had unanimously approved a package of recommendations for further research. In this regard, commissioners urged the National Institutes of Health to study gambling addiction, the National Science Foundation to evaluate the costs and benefits of gambling and the National Institute of Justice to investigate adolescent gambling and sports betting, both legal and illegal.

The commission contended with sharp differences among its members - people reflecting views on both sides of a passionate debate on gambling in America.

Anti-gambling lawmakers grumbled in 1996 when three people who make their living in and around Las Vegas casinos were named to the nine-person commission.

Yet in the end, the commissioners managed to reach consensus on more than 70 recommendations. These include calls for a nationwide minimum age of 21 to place bets - gambling is legal at 18 in many states - less aggressive state lottery advertising and more funding of programs to treat gambling addicts.

Supporters of the gambling industry, fearing the commission would become a runaway jury, worked to weaken its subpoena power in 1996. Yet in the end, the commission never issued any subpoenas. Nor did the commission's anti-gambling members advocate an outright ban of gambling or a crippling federal tax on its proceeds.

Leone, a former New Jersey treasurer, had been boosted for membership on the commission by the state's two Democratic members of the U.S. Senate, Frank Lautenberg and Robert Torricelli. Both Lautenberg and Torricelli are supportive of gambling.

Yet Leone emerged as a driving force behind several of the panel's strongest and most controversial recommendations.

He proposed the language encouraging a moratorium on further expansion of gambling, a call for states to require "gambling impact statements" before approving new gambling and restrictions on political contributions by the gambling industry in state and local campaigns.

"We put four or five big issues on the table," Leone said. "We got the point across that we've come very far very fast (on gambling expansion) without thinking about what we're doing."

Commissioner William Bible, a former chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, said he believes suggestions like the moratorium and limits on campaign contributions will be "discounted, blown off by the states."

But he noted that all nine members of the commission found common ground on problem gambling and will issue a strong appeal for more research, education and treatment.

"I think that will probably be the legacy of this commission," Bible said.