Gambling news from http://www.cleveland.com/
October 22, 2006 - Racetrack owners and two Cleveland developers are using the high cost of college education to hook voters on a plan to bring up to 31,500 slot machines to Ohio.
The Vote Yes on Issue 3 Committee is running a multimillion-dollar campaign to change the Ohio Constitution and allow up to 31,500 electronic-slot machines at nine sites - Ohio's seven racetracks, as well as Tower City owned by Forest City Enterprises Inc. and the Nautica Entertainment Complex operated by investor Jeff Jacobs.
But slots opponents say the would-be slots operators are over-hyping the "Learn and Earn" plan to achieve the true aim - pocketing tens of millions of dollars in profits.
Ohio "is the last big piece of land that the gambling industry wants," says David Zanotti, leader of the Vote NO Casinos Committee. "If they get the door open, they'll do whatever they want with it."
Since 1990, gambling interests have failed twice at the ballot and repeatedly in the Ohio legislature to land racetrack slots parlors or full-fledged casinos.
But the slots group believes the time is right. Ohioans now spend more than $900 million yearly at casinos in Indiana, Michigan and West Virginia, according to gambling industry estimates.
"The states around us don't want this to pass," says Cuyahoga County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora, who has joined his colleagues and Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson in supporting Issue 3. "This gives us a fighting chance to keep up with the competition."
The Learn and Earn plan sets aside 30 percent of slots revenue for college grants and scholarships, estimated to reach $853 million annually.
Learn and Earn would begin in 2009, paying the average undergraduate tuition for high school graduates who rank in the top 5 percent of their class and who attend an Ohio college.
Other students would be eligible for partial college aid until 2021. That's when all students could qualify for average annual tuition, if they meet criteria that is to be crafted by the Ohio Board of Regents.
Another 8 percent of the slots revenue - estimated at $227 million by 2012 - would flow into economic development and capital projects across the state.
Cleveland and Cuyahoga County could see up to $75 million a year in economic development money, local business leaders said.
Statewide, the casino development would result in 56,000 full-time jobs, spinning several billion dollars a year into the economy, a consultant for the Cleveland chamber of commerce reported.
More than half of the slots revenue would go to horse tracks and slots operators.
Six percent would fund bigger purses at Ohio's struggling horse tracks.
Fifty-five percent - projected at $1.56 billion yearly - would cover slots operators' expenses and profits, according to the slots group. Annual profits would average $19.5 million at the nine sites.
Slots opponents said Learn and Earn hands a lucrative, constitutional monopoly to wealthy track operators.
Vote NO committee Co-chairman Zanotti and others, including an economic development consultant to the Cuyahoga County commissioners, believe local businesses will suffer as the slots parlors claim a big chunk of recreational spending.
U.S. Sen. George Voinovich and Gov. Bob Taft said social costs, particularly among gambling addicts, will further shake local economies.
Issue 3 supporters note that 1 percent of slots revenue, an estimated $28 million yearly, would pay for gambling-addiction and prevention programs.
In Columbus, business leaders complain Learn and Earn is too kind to Northeast Ohio.
Cleveland would land the only downtown gambling venues in the state, unhappy Columbus business leaders noted.
The two Cleveland sites, along with two area horse tracks, could offer table games after a local vote in 2010, under the plan. No other slots parlors could expand to full-fledged casinos.
Zanotti said he doubts that slots would provide enough to cover the annual-tuition promises for high school graduates.
Learn and Earn's annual revenue estimates for college aid started at $700 million in the spring and stand now at $853 million.
"If casinos fail to perform at the rates promised . . . parents and students will simply be out of luck," the Vote NO group said in a news release.
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