Casino News Source: http://www.swtimes.com
By Rob Moritz
Arkansas News Bureau rmoritz@arkansasnews.com
LITTLE ROCK — A Texas businessman pushing a new gambling amendment said Monday that the timing may be right for approval of a statewide lottery and casinos in Arkansas.
The Legislature’s endorsement last year of a proposed constitutional amendment that would legalize bingo for nonprofit groups and the voter-approved expansion of electronic gambling at racetracks in Hot Springs and West Memphis are good indicators that opposition to a gambling amendment may be fading, said Michael Wasserman of Gainesville, Texas.
“The climate is changing,” Wasserman said.
About 90 volunteers are collecting signatures to qualify his proposed constitutional amendment for the November general election ballot. It would authorize construction and operation of casinos in seven counties and create a statewide lottery. Both are banned under the state constitution.
To get the proposal on the Nov. 7 ballot, Wasserman’s group must submit 80,570 valid signatures of registered voters to the secretary of state’s office by July 2.
Larry Page, executive director of the anti-gambling group Arkansas Faith and Ethics Council, said Monday he believes Arkansas voters would defeat the proposal if it appeared on the general election ballot. He noted that voters overwhelmingly defeated a similar proposal in 2000.
Page said his organization will campaign against the proposal if it makes the ballot.
Wasserman, who owns Metrocrest Communications, a
telecommunications firm, said the collection of signatures is going well, although he said he did not know how many signatures have been collected.
“Things were pretty fast and furious at Riverfest and we’re still counting those,” Wasserman said.
Canvassers collected signatures at Little Rock’s annual Memorial Day weekend festival, which drew thousands this year.
Volunteers, including members of the Arkansas AFL-CIO, which has publicly endorsed the plan, are expected to collect signatures outside election precincts during the June 13 primary runoffs.
Under Wasserman’s proposal, which had its popular name and ballot title approved by the attorney general general’s office in March, 100,000-square-foot casinos would be built and operated in Boone, Crittenden, Garland, Jefferson, Miller, Pulaski and Sebastian counties. The proposal also would create a statewide lottery.
Wasserman said Monday that he expects each casino to generate about $250 million a year in net revenue.
“Multiply that by seven, and you have $1.750 billion,” he said.
He had no estimates on how much a statewide lottery would generate annually.
The casinos would pay state and local taxes, and proceeds would allow the state to eliminate the state sales tax on groceries, Wasserman said.
Of the money generated by the proposed lottery, 50 percent would go back into prizes, 5 percent would go to managing the lottery and 45 percent would go into an educational trust fund, said Wasserman, who heads Arkansas Resorts and Hotels Inc.
He said money in the educational trust fund would be available for college scholarships and programs for pre-school and K-12 education.
“We’ve had a great deal of support from people in the state,” Wasserman said. “We’ve had phone calls from people within those cities where the casinos would be built saying, ‘Hey, we want this here; what can we do to help.’”
Page said Americans in general appear to have become more accepting of gambling in recent years. He said all but about eight states now have a lottery, and well over half of the states have some form of gambling.
“Are people become more desensitize? Perhaps,” Page said. “But I have to go back to the last time Arkansans were able to speak comprehensively on the issue, in 2000 when voters rejected a very similar proposal 64 percent to 36 percent. That’s pretty definitive.”
The Legislature voted during the 2005 regular session to send one proposed constitutional amendment to the voters in November. That proposal, Proposed Constitutional Amendment No. 1 on the Nov. 7 ballot, would allow nonprofit groups such as the VFW, Knights of Columbus and American Legion to operate bingo games for charitable purposes. |
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