Gambline Bill Badly Flawed taken from http://www.theintelligencer.net
Table gambling apparently will not get the green light from the current session of the West Virginia Legislature, it was revealed on Friday. Proponents of it probably are wondering where they went wrong. We?€™ll tell them:
They attempted to strike it rich with table gambling at the state?€™s four racetracks ?€” while offering to throw only table scraps to local and state government.
Municipal and county governments in particular would have been cheated by the table gambling proposal, had it been approved in the form initially submitted to lawmakers.
Approval of the bill would have allowed voters in Ohio, Hancock, Jefferson and Kanawha counties ?€” where racetracks already have video gambling ?€” to decide whether to allow table gambling at the tracks. The tracks were willing to allow local and state governments to keep just 12 percent of the proceeds from table gambling.
That?€™s bad enough, but consider the amount city and county governments in racetrack counties would have received. While the state would have kept 10.26 percent, counties with table gambling would have gotten just one-fourth of 1 percent. Cities in such counties would have divided another one-fourth of 1 percent.
But that 12 percent isn?€™t even real money for local and state governments. Nearly 1 percent of proceeds would, in effect, have been kicked back to the tracks for ?€?purse funds?€¯ used to pay the owners of dogs and horses winning races.
Had approval of the bill led to implementation of table gambling at Wheeling Island Racetrack and Gaming Center, this is what it would have meant: Owners of fast dogs would have received a cut of the take four times as large as that sent to the Ohio County Commission.
That?€™s just outrageous.
Gambling is an incredibly lucrative business. The racetracks could afford ?€” easily ?€” to allow government to retain much, much more than 12 percent of the proceeds from table gambling.
Racetracks in both Ohio and Hancock counties have become important to the area?€™s economy.
But gambling can be a very volatile industry. That should prompt local officials to push for diversification in economic development programs. It should encourage them to look to the gambling industry for help in that regard ?€” and that means a much greater local government share of gambling proceeds than has been the case or is proposed for the future.
The table gambling return envisioned for local and state governments is ridiculous. All West Virginians should be upset about that. But those of us in the Northern Panhandle should be especially concerned that, while the gambling industry is enjoying enormous profits, it is not helping us to build a better economy for the future. |
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