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Gambling law put to test before state Supreme Court

Thursday, March 10, 2005 | 9:08 a.m.

PITTSBURGH -- Opponents of the state's gambling law told the state Supreme Court on Wednesday that legislators created a monster last summer that deceived voters.

To legalize slot machines in Pennsylvania, lawmakers created a "centaur" of a law with a "body of a horse, head of a slot machine," said Jim West, who represents Pennsylvanians Against Gambling Expansion.

Pennsylvania's gambling legislation was two decades in the making before lawmakers pushed the bill through the General Assembly last summer.

Over 18 months, legislators transformed a one-page statute that would have allowed state police to fingerprint people seeking horse-racing licenses into a 145-page law that created investigative agencies, a gambling control board and funding streams for huge projects -- in short, an entire gambling industry, opponents said.

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