Gambling news from http://www.columbusdispatch.com/
DES MOINES, Iowa — Corn is still Iowa’s top cash crop, but cherries are rapidly catching up.
Iowa’s cherries, however, don’t grow on trees. They spin on slot machines, which for the past 17 years have sprouted across this agricultural state faster than ears of corn under the summer sun.
Since Iowa became the Midwest’s first wagering state with the opening of a riverboat casino in 1989, gambling has changed Iowans’ lives in ways both subtle and dramatic.
It has created nearly 35,000 jobs in a state that was reeling from farming employment losses. It has contributed to divorces and bankruptcies. It has even helped spruce up the governor’s mansion.
One measure of gambling’s impact: In 2005, University of Northern Iowa researchers say, casinos and the businesses that depend on them generated $3.5 billion, more than $1,000 for every Iowan.
By contrast, corn, still Iowa’s biggest commodity, took in $4.2 billion and soybeans $2.9 billion, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says.
Twenty years ago, Iowa, like Ohio now, had no gambling other than betting on horse races, charitable bingo and a state lottery. Slot machines and table games were hundreds of miles away in Atlantic City and Las Vegas.
Iowa not only ushered slot machines and poker tables into the Heartland, it also pioneered the concept of a merged racetrack and casino. That hybrid, dubbed a racino, is the centerpiece of Ohio’s State Issue 3, which would allow the Buckeye State’s seven horse-racing tracks to add thousands of slot machines.
Despite Iowa’s leading role in bringing a bit of Vegas to a region known more for pork futures than poker, many Iowans remain deeply ambivalent about gambling in their state. Few see it as balm to the state’s economy, but fewer still want to banish the state’s nearly 16,000 slot machines and 450 table games.
"It’s just one of those things that’s not talked about a lot," said Lyle Maudlin, a retired plumber from Fairfield, a small town in southeastern Iowa. "People aren’t out boasting about it. It just is the way it is."
The state has one slot machine per 144 adults, a ratio twice as high as Ohio would have if Issue 3 passes and racetrack owners and Cleveland developers install as many slots as the law permits. Iowa casinos reported more than 21 million visits last year, or about nine a year per adult resident.
Iowa’s seemingly bottomless market consists of people such as retired department store buyer Karen Massey, 66, a regular at Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino, a 250,000-squarefoot gambling emporium just outside Des Moines. The only Iowa attraction that draws more people is the state fair.
Massey, who lives in Des Moines, enjoys video poker, pronouncing slot machines boring.
"I sit there and wonder, ‘What did older people do before casinos?’ " she said. "They must have been at home staring at the walls.
"It’s really been a mixed blessing. Casinos are a lot of fun as long as you know when to quit. I know people who have missed house payments or gone bankrupt. It brings a lot of misery to people who cannot take care of their finances."
State gambling regulators classify about 2 percent of adults as problem gamblers, mirroring the national average in areas with casinos. Of gamblers admitted to the Iowa Department of Public Health’s treatment program in 2005, one-third reported bankruptcies or other defaults and one in seven said gambling cost them their job or got them arrested in the previous year.
The majority of problem gamblers in Iowa, 62 percent, identified slot machines as their primary vice.
Tom Coates, a native Iowan who runs a credit-counseling service, is perhaps the state’s most outspoken gambling opponent.
Coates said the casino juggernaut has silenced opposition from newspapers and politicians with advertisements and political contributions, respectively, and squelched studies that would show the downsides of gambling. He disputes regulators who say that problem gamblers account for only 2 percent of adults, pointing to a 1995 study that showed the proportion at 5.4 percent.
"If you look at the impact (of casinos) in that 50-mile radius around them, the societal problems — the divorces, bankruptcies, crime — it’s more prevalent," Coates said. "That’s why convenience gambling should be avoided at all costs."
On the other side, Wes Ehrecke serves as the public face of Iowa’s gambling industry. The president of the Iowa Gaming Association, Ehrecke reels off statistics about the economic benefits of the industry.
He argues that gambling has been an unqualified success in Iowa, rescuing the state from the farm crisis of the late 1980s and spurring population growth in areas near casinos. Revenue from gambling, taxed at 22 to 24 percent, has built a research center at the University of Iowa, helped restore wetlands, paid for a concert venue in Des Moines and refurbished the governor’s mansion, Ehrecke said.
"It is truly a huge success story," he said. "This has been a catalyst for economic development, and it’s part of the mix of what makes a vibrant community."
Fifteen years ago, Prairie Meadows declared bankruptcy and hosted craft shows to keep its doors open.
Today, the casino is in the midst of a major expansion, adding 500 slot machines, a 150-seat steakhouse and 250-seat buffet, and a 1,200-seat indoor entertainment venue.
Even a quick stroll around the five-story facility reveals the reasons for the turnaround.
Downstairs, the thrum of 1,509 slot machines dominates. Each machine brings in an average of $293 a day in profit, among the highest figures in Iowa and about $50 a day more than Ohio gambling proponents are projecting.
Upstairs, a nearly funereal silence pervades the simulcast area, where only a handful of people are placing bets on horses and watching televised races. A live harness-race card Thursday evening attracted only about 30 spectators, many of whom bet only a few dollars.
Horse racing still loses money or barely breaks even, said Gary Palmer, the president of Prairie Meadows. Slot machines and table games bring in more than $160 million a year, with slots accounting for about 70 percent, and 11 percent of that profit goes toward purses for horse racing.
Without that, there would be no professional horse racing in Iowa, Palmer said.
Palmer, a plainspoken 59-year-old Iowa native, speaks with the zeal of the converted. To him, Iowa’s racinos and casinos provide both a connection to the state’s agricultural heritage and a pathway forward to a time when tourism and entertainment pay for vital government services, build schools and colleges, and upgrade libraries.
Thirty years ago, Palmer said, he would have laughed at any suggestion that gambling would someday compete with agriculture as an engine of his state’s economy.
"We could never have believed that any of this would have happened, especially in such a short time. It’s really been unbelievable."
But maybe it’s not unbelievable after all, Palmer mused upon reflection.
"Americans are gamblers. We always have been. We’re business people. We take chances."
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