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Official wants slots at tracks

Friday, June 28, 2002 | 11:19 a.m.

PONTIAC, Mich. -- A powerful politician is pulling for legislation that would allow electronic gaming, including slot machines, at Michigan's seven horse tracks.

Electronic gambling would relieve the state's projected $1 billion budget deficit and shore up a racing industry crippled by the growth of casino gambling, Oakland County Executive L. Brooks Patterson said.

"The public has had it up to here with tax increases, and I'm giving them a way out," Patterson told The Oakland Press for a Thursday story.

Ken Marshall, director of racing at Hazel Park Harness Raceway, said he agreed with Patterson that tax revenues from electronic gaming would be preferable to raising taxes or cutting state programs.

Racetrack slots also would help facilities such as Hazel Park, where business dropped by 30 percent when Ontario's Casino Windsor opened and by another 30 percent when the first of Detroit's three casinos opened in 1999, Marshall told The Detroit News.

Gov. John Engler, like Patterson a Republican, has said he supports all the measures except for the one legalizing racetrack slots. Slot machines now are legal only at Michigan's 21 casinos.

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