Ky. lawmakers reignite bid to expand gambling in state
- Jan 31, 2009
FRANKFORT—With his election last week as House Speaker, Rep. Greg Stumbo has reignited the expanded gambling debate in Kentucky.
Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, ousted Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, during a short week of leadership meetings to kick off the 2009 General Assembly. Richards had served as House Speaker since 1995.
Just days after his victory, Stumbo, a supporter of expanded gambling in the commonwealth, filed a bill with the House that would bring video lottery terminals to race tracks across the state.
The move comes less than a year after the defeat of a constitutional amendment that would have allowed casinos to operate in Kentucky. Gov. Steve Beshear pushed hard for the bill, which lacked support among state senators.
Kentucky Baptists were some of the loudest voices heard in opposition to the governor’s gambling amendment last year. Several groups, including Kentucky Woman’s Missionary Union and the Kentucky Baptist African-American Pastors’ Fellowship, organized anti-casino rallies at the Capitol Rotunda, just feet from the governor’s office.
However, the expanded gambling push this time around presents a whole different challenge for opposition leaders.
Stumbo’s bill focuses on video lottery terminals, or VLTs, devices that are very similar to slot machines. The House Speaker’s plan calls for the machines to be instituted as an expansion of the Kentucky Lottery, eliminating the need for a constitutional amendment.
“Last year, it was all about letting the people decide,” said Robert Reeves, Kentucky Baptist Convention communications director. “This year, they’re changing tactics to say, ‘Maybe the people don’t really need to decide. We can do this in the legislature and get this passed.’”
Reeves, who administers a blog for the KBC’s Committee on Public Affairs, described VLTs as slot machines—with a high-tech difference.
“They are all tied to a central computer. So, the computer can be programmed to allocate winners in a way similar to a lottery, as if you were buying a lottery ticket,” he explained.
Stumbo’s bill would place VLTs at seven Kentucky race tracks. Two Lexington tracks would be allowed to operate a joint VLT parlor, similar to that of a casino, according to Family Foundation of Kentucky Executive Director Kent Ostrander.
“The fact of the matter is ‘racinos’ are casinos,” he said, “and VLTs and video slots are the most addictive form of gambling.”
Highly addictive games
Ostrander called VLTs “the absolute worst” form of gambling which would create very few jobs in the state “because hundreds of machines can be maintained by one person.”
“These machines are designed to, as the gambling industry describes, encourage patrons to ‘play unto extinction,’” he added.
According to a report in the Louisville Courier-Journal, Stumbo claimed his plan would raise as much as $700 million a year once the VLTs are full operational. That money, he said, would be distributed to elementary education, drug treatment programs and problem gambling treatment.
Paul Strahan, who serves as chairman of the Public Affairs Committee, said pumping gambling revenues into education will do little to improve Kentucky’s schools. A Mississippi native, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Owensboro indicated that the abundance of casino gambling has had little positive effect on his home state.
“I’ve seen what it’s done to (Mississippi’s) Gulf Coast, he said. “Now. there will always be some people who’ll be pushing (expanded gambling) saying, ‘The education’s better.’ But in Mississippi, the education is not better.”
Strahan pointed out that expanding gambling in the state only serves to prey on those who can least afford to give their money away. “Somebody’s got to be losing it for somebody to gain it.”
He said he has urged his church members to get in touch with their legislators to voice their opposition to expanded gambling.
“We’ve got to make it known how important it is to us,” Strahan noted.
This article is reprinted from the January 13, 2009, issue of the Western Recorder, the newspaper of the Kentucky Baptist Convention.
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