Video gambling debate: Saving an industry or promoting addiction?

Glenn Adams

Friday, Oct. 20, 2000 | 11:22 a.m.

WEST GARDINER, Maine - Ernie Lowell looks up as he nails a shoe to a midnight colored trotter's hoof, and says he started shoeing horses 32 years ago. But harness racing was a tradition in his family long before that.

"My father was a gentleman type farmer, he raced horses all his life, but he wasn't a gambler. My grandfather before him, he raced horses, and he wasn't a gambler," says the burly Lowell.

But Lowell, who has owned a horse or two in his 54 years, is betting on one thing: If a referendum proposal to allow video gambling fails on Nov. 7, the harness racing industry will lose big.

"It's necessary for its survival," says Lowell, adding that he can't stand the thought of a Maine tradition dying off. He won't leave easily. "I'll go (on) until the last horse walks off."

Question 3 on Maine's referendum ballot asks whether video lottery machines should be allowed at "certain" horse racing tracks if 40 percent of the profits are used for property tax relief.

The bill appears to include only Scarborough Downs, the harness track owned by former gubernatorial aspirant Joseph Ricci, but opponents contend that it also applies to off-track betting parlors.

Lowell and other backers of the initiated proposal say the very survival of a sport that directly supports more than 2,000 people and helps support another 1,700 is at stake.

By offering slots and games like video poker, Scarborough Downs would entice race fans who are being lured elsewhere to stay in Maine. But there's more, they point out.

The gambling machines are expected to generate $40 million-$50 million a year for cities and towns, according to a state analysis. Pro-casino forces say that should translate into property tax relief.

A portion would also be returned to state agricultural fairs, although opponents believe the Cumberland and Farmington fairs would be excluded.

But national antigambling crusader Rev. Thomas Grey sees a bigger issue. He warns that gambling has a dark side that's as simple as A-B-C: "addiction, bankruptcy, crime and corruption."

Gray is allied with Gov. Angus King, who says he dislikes the idea of sullying Maine's image as a wholesome, family-oriented, outdoorsy place with casinos and the problems that come with them.

If there is one point on which neither side can disagree, it's that gambling of some sort is allowed nearly everywhere, even in Maine, if you count the state lottery, which itself has an annual payoff in the $40 million range.

The state that's been mentioned most often in the debate has been Delaware, where figures show that casinos have rejuvenated a harness racing industry that was "dying" in the 1980s, according to Lowell, who worked there at the time.

The tracks made nearly $630 million from slots between late 1995 and mid-1999, while Delaware's government took a $360 million slice of the pie.

A chunk of money also went back into Delaware's purses, which goes to the owners of the winning horses, just as it would do in Maine.

Terry Garmey, a leader of the campaign to defeat the Maine video proposal, said Delaware's machines, which are owned by the state, are wired so money they take in is distributed every day.

But in Maine, the proposed law has a weaker revenue reporting system, Garmey says. He questions whether state police would get the financial muscle they need to oversee gambling. And what the towns and cities do with the money is also a question.

"No matter how you read the bill, there's no guarantee taxpayers are going to see real tax relief," warned Mark Robinson, also of the antigambling campaign.

To bolster their case that video machines can revitalize Maine's racing industry, pro-gambling forces point to Canada. Slots that have been permitted at Ontario race tracks since 1998 are being called saviors of an industry that was languishing, they point out.

Back in New England, slot machines fattened purses and bolstered attendance at the Lincoln Park greyhound racetrack, giving the Rhode Island track a new lease on life in 1992.

Backers of the Maine proposal say the state needs video gambling machines to keep people from spending their dollars at other states' tracks.

One of them could be New Hampshire, where Gov. Jean Shaheen says her state needs new revenues to finance public schools. Her first choice would be video gambling at the state's three dog tracks one horse track. It has become a major issue in her re-election campaign.

A fear of fleeing gamblers prompted West Virginia's lottery overseers to allow 500 more slot machines at a Jefferson County track, bringing the total there to 2,000, the most at any location in the state.

The added terminals may keep Washington, D.C., and Baltimore customers from taking their business to casinos in Delaware, said West Virginia Lottery Director John Musgrave. Existing machines are so busy that players have to wait for machines to become available.

And Louisiana hopes to bolster purses by allowing a slot machine casino at a horse racing track to be built early next year. Evangeline Downs is one of three Louisiana horse racing tracks that have approval for slot machines.

Despite the experiences of other states, video machines are likely to drain attendance from Maine harness races, according to Garmey, whose group is called No Dice: Mainers Against a Dishonest Deal.

Garmey cites a study by nonpartisan state budget analysts that sees people who bet on harness racing being lured away by the casino games. A decline in pari-mutuel wagering would resulting in more than $1 million in lost revenue over three years, the analysis says.

Opponents also say imprecise wording of the referendum question leaves off-track betting facilities, restaurants and hotels open to casino gambling.