“
In many ways, it’s at the center of this year’s campaign for
“Our latest study shows that $232 million in tax revenue was generated at
It’s also only part of the story. Throw in
Should
That’s where the candidates disagree.
“Right now, that Kentucky money is educating Indiana’s children, lowering health-care costs in
If elected, Beshear — a 63-year-old former state attorney general — has vowed to get the issue onto a Kentucky ballot, first by working up a state constitutional amendment allowing casino gambling, then by getting a bill through the legislature that would create the parameters for “limited” gambling in the state. Kentuckians then would have the chance to vote on that plan in the next election.
Republican incumbent Ernie Fletcher — a 54-year-old former Baptist preacher — has said he would work in the opposite direction, battling to keep casino gambling out of
“Where does it stop?” asked Marty Ryall, Fletcher’s campaign manager. “If a neighboring state makes crack cocaine legal and is making money off it, then should
“It shouldn’t be in the position of pushing an addiction that will be sucking the people’s life savings away.”
Thus, the battle lines have been drawn.
In the true spirit of American politics, both of
“Steve Beshear is saying there is no hope for
Mr. Beshear, your thoughts?
“Ernie Fletcher would like folks to think that (gambling) is the only issue they ought to think about in this election,” Beshear said in an interview for this story. “That will divert people’s attention from the real issue: the lack of leadership in the last four years and the need for new, honest leadership with integrity for a change.”
But no matter who made it that way, casino gambling in
So what’s at stake?
If Beshear is elected, and the constitutional amendment allowing gaming passes, he envisions creating “10 or so” gaming licenses in
“Those would be the only locations,” Beshear said. “It wouldn’t be in anybody’s back yard or convenience store or bar; I would veto any kind of legislation that proposed that.
“I also think that the local community where a freestanding casino would be proposed should have the right to either accept it or reject it. That way, no one — even in this limited situation — would have a casino facility located there if they didn’t want it.”
In gaming taxes alone, these facilities would be expected to generate about $439 million a year, according to KEEP’s Neely. That doesn’t factor in admission taxes, property taxes, income taxes generated by the jobs created, or any boost in tourism that comes from bringing casinos to
And all of that would happen, according to
“It would also capture money that Kentuckians are spending in other states; you can go in any of the six congressional districts and they have tour buses taking people to the out-of-state casinos every day.”
Of course, with gambling come regulatory expenses. Both Beshear and Clark talked about creating a gaming commission to oversee the new industry, to, in
But with so many Kentuckians already participating in casino gambling — a KEEP study found that an estimated 660,000 residents left the state to gamble at least four times last year, and that about a billion Kentucky dollars annually are being spent at casinos — Beshear said it’s time Kentucky took a piece of this pie.
“Kentuckians are already doing this,” he said. “We’re just suggesting that we should keep the money at home instead of letting it go out of state. “Plus, we would attract money from outside — we’d bring a boost in tourism into the state, we’d bring a lot more conventions into the state, and really stimulate our economy.
“I for one am tired of saying, ‘Thank God for Mississippi’ when we look at how Kentucky compares with other states regarding jobs, health care and education, just (because) they typically are one of the few states that rank lower than us.”
The revenue from casinos, he said, can help fix those problems.
Ernie Fletcher doesn’t dispute the numbers, per se. He acknowledges that the state could see as much as $500 million in casino revenue per year. He doesn’t disagree that Kentuckians are going out of the state to gamble, or that the money they lose in those casinos is helping other states.
But there’s more to the casino-gambling story than those numbers, Fletcher contends. There is the cost of regulation, and of treatment for compulsive gamblers. But more than anything, there is a tremendous social cost to casino gambling — one that can’t necessarily be quantified in dollars and cents.
“Casinos will invite the kind of people into our old Kentucky home that we don’t need,” Fletcher said. “Look at states that have casino gambling, and look at the bankruptcies, divorces and suicide rates. Nevada has the highest suicide rate of seniors in the nation (at about three times the national average, according to the Las Vegas Sun); that’s why I say, ‘What happens in Vegas needs to stay in Vegas.’”
And what would Kentuckians gain for that cost?
Fletcher frequently refers to the money coming in from casino taxes as “fool’s gold.” He does so for several reasons.
First, he said, is what has happened in states that have casino gambling. Missouri schools haven’t seen the promised increase in funding from casinos, Fletcher said; Illinois hasn’t seen a substantial increase in funding and Indiana is “always having budget problems, and they keep expanding gaming” to fight them.
Why does he think new casino money wouldn’t help Kentucky either? Because there wouldn’t be new money, Fletcher said — Kentuckians only would be taking money they have been spending at local businesses and instead spent it at the casinos. According to his campaign, 75 percent of the money that will be spent in casinos will come from what currently is being spent at local businesses; about two-thirds of that money (the part that doesn’t eventually go to the state as tax dollars) goes back to the casino’s owner, who usually is based in?Las?Vegas?or Atlantic City.
So in order for Kentucky to make the?$500?million in?revenue?that Beshear claims, the casinos themselves would have to make $1.5 billion — $1 billion?of?which leaves the state of Kentucky, said both Fletcher and his campaign manager, Ryall.
“And a lot of that money would have been spent in a local business (anyway),” Ryall said. “People come in, go to the casino, eat there, shop there, and local businesses suffer because they’re losing business to that casino. So people lose part of their income that usually would be spent on groceries or movies or other local businesses, and that money doesn’t go back into the Kentucky economy.”
And while some Kentuckians already are gambling that money away in other states, having casinos locally would only exacerbate the problem, according to the Fletcher team. “For every dime now being lost out-of-state by Kentuckians,” Ryall said, “it will increase tenfold when you put casinos in Kentucky.”
Of course, Beshear disputed most of these claims.
While he agreed that, in order for Kentucky to receive the $500 million in taxes, casinos would have to make a total of $1.5 billion, he quarreled with Fletcher’s other numbers. “Time and again, Ernie Fletcher makes ridiculous, outrageous claims — each more off-the-wall than the next,” Beshear said. “I know that, each year, thousands of Kentuckians travel across our borders and sp/files/storyimages/their entertainment dollars. . . . If that money was instead spent here, we estimate $500 million a year in new tax revenue.”
Rhetoric aside, what really would happen if casinos came to Kentucky? The best answers to that question likely can be found in other states — states where casino gambling is legal and has been for several years.
Legal gaming came to Illinois in 1991. Thus far, it is home to 16 gambling locations, which have generated approximately $685 million in revenue for the state in fiscal year 2007. And Illinois is looking to add more; recently, its legislature considered a bill to allow expansion at all casinos in the state and to add four new casinos in the Chicago area.
At press time, the bill had just failed passage by a narrow margin. Gov. Rod Blagojevich refused to comment on how gambling had affected his state for this article. However, his statements to other publications have been clear on the issue: Blagojevich is now, and has always been, anti-casino gambling. However, he has told other media that he would consider signing this bill because, despite his opposition to gambling, the revenue earned from the new casinos would have helped meet his goals for Illinois education and health care.
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, whose state legalized casino gambling in 1993 (the first casino opened in 1995), also refused to comment on its impact. However, a study commissioned in 2005 by the Hoosier State’s legislature (and often cited by Fletcher during this campaign) sheds some light on the issue. The study by Policy Analytics Inc. used fiscal year 2005 as its sample to determine that 8 percent of crime in counties with casinos was attributable to that casino’s presence, at a cost of $52.14 million. Statewide, 1.4 percent of bankruptcies ($1.21 million) were cited as casino-created, while $20 million to $40 million was spent dealing with job loss, unemployment, health costs, mental health costs, gambling treatment and divorce.
Those figures, plus the regulatory cost of $3.34 million for the fiscal year, brings the total social cost of casino gambling to between $76 million and $96 million. These are the factors frequently cited when Fletcher talks about the study.
On the flip side, however, is the study’s conclusion.
“The benefits to Indiana citizens from Indiana’s policy of licensing and regulating riverboat casinos are significantly greater than the costs,” says the study’s “Findings” section, “providing greater than $700 million in benefits.”
In his interview for this story, Beshear acknowledged Fletcher’s claim that casino gambling will bring negative consequences — consequences such as bankruptcy, some crime, and increased problem gambling. What Kentucky voters will have to decide, he said, is if it’s all worth it. He believes that it is.
“Certainly, there are social ills attached to gambling — people with compulsive issues can become compulsive gamblers, compulsive drinkers, even compulsive shoppers,” Beshear said. “But we don’t stop other people from taking a social drink or enjoying themselves in other ways simply because there are some who have personality disorders.
“Instead, we direct treatment toward those folks, and we certainly should set aside money to do that in this instance as well.”
There are, of course, other issues in the campaign. Chief among them, according to both campaigns, is the hiring scandal that plagued Fletcher’s first term. A total of 15 members of the administration — including Fletcher — were indicted for violating merit system laws; Fletcher pardoned the 14 others named in the case and declined to speak to the grand jury, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, a move Beshear blasted as shameful.
“It’s a sad day when the governor pardons everybody, so they don’t have to testify about what they did or did not do,” said Beshear, who served as Kentucky’s attorney general from 1980-1984.
Fletcher, however, dismissed the scandal as a “witch hunt” — something Beshear disputes by asking why, with nothing to hide, Fletcher took the Fifth Amendment.
But will that issue even affect the gubernatorial election? In spite of it, Fletcher beat out several other candidates, including former U.S. Rep. Anne Northup of Louisville, to win the Republican nomination. And while, according to most polls, he was trailing Beshear at press time, some political observers have suggested that the merit scandal had run its course. But there may be another reason why Beshear is pushing that issue late in the campaign.
“I think opinions on the (hiring) issue are pretty much set,” said Scott Lasley, a professor of political science at Western Kentucky University. “Sometimes, when you talk about things, you’re not talking about them because they’ll have a big impact. Sometimes, the impact is more subtle — it drowns out the other guy’s message.”
The issue Beshear may be trying to drown, ironically, is the issue that was seen as “his” issue, the one that separated him from the other Democratic primary contenders: gambling. In recent weeks, the Democratic challenger has become less enthusiastic about discussing the casino issue, while Fletcher has embraced it — an attempt by the former Baptist preacher, some suggest, to rally moral opposition among throngs of his Republican base.
Lasley, among others, suggested that Fletcher has strengthened his stance against casino gambling (he’s always said he’s “against” it, but also suggested in his last campaign that he supported “letting the voters decide”) because he is behind in the polls. Coming out strongly against casino gambling could galvanize the right — but it also could backfire, because polls suggest that the majority of Kentuckians support at least putting gambling on the ballot for voters to decide.
“I think Fletcher’s people think he can win on gambling,” Lasley said. “He doesn’t have a majority of the state on that issue, but of the 40 percent of (eligible voters) who actually show up at the polls, they think he can win a majority of those on the gambling issue.
“(As a strategy), it’s a gamble. I think it will be very effective at bringing his core constituency (to the polls). . . . It’s also a wedge issue that may peel off a few conservative Democrats. The question is, will that be enough?”
Ryall,?however,?has?another,?simpler explanation?for?Fletcher’s?suddenly-strong opposition to casino gambling. “The governor has always been opposed to casino gambling in Kentucky,” Ryall said. “In the past, he’s taken the position that, if the legislators put the issue to the voters, and if they want it, then he’ll support it.
“The difference now is, the issue is being put to the voters, in the form that Steve Beshear is for casino gambling, and if you elect him, you will get casino gambling.”
Come Nov. 6, then, Kentucky’s voters will get to decide whose hand they’d most like to play.
Freelance writer Joe Atkinson may be reached at Jwamedia@yahoo.com.
