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March 4, 2010

Mass. speaker proposes slots, 2 casinos for state

Glen Johnson

BOSTON (AP) — House Speaker Robert DeLeo reignited the debate over expanded gambling in Massachusetts today, proposing to build two casinos and add slot machines at the state's four existing race tracks as a means of generating badly needed revenue and adding jobs for its blue-collar workers.

In a speech to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, DeLeo said expanded gambling would complement recent tax investments in expanding the life sciences and clean energy sectors.

While those have boosted white-collar employment, he said, blue-collar workers in the construction and service industries continue to suffer.

"I have cautioned before and I will caution again: Gaming is not a panacea," said the text of DeLeo's remarks. "But it is a plan that creates a new economic sector and new jobs in Massachusetts when we need them most."

The speaker also aimed to soften opposition, saying the bill he plans to file later this month will include a proposal to use a portion of expected gaming licensing fees to support existing manufacturers and to lure new ones to Massachusetts. He said a fund would help manufacturers with capital improvements, but he did not give any specifics.

DeLeo also acknowledged concerns about the social costs — in terms of increased crime, divorce and alcohol and gambling abuse — that may come from expanded gambling.

"There is no doubt there is a social cost to gaming. But, too often we forget, there is also a social cost to joblessness. We need to get people working. We will devote a portion of any gaming revenue to addiction-treatment programs," he said.

Massachusetts already allows gambling through its lottery games as well as through live racing. But lottery revenues — whose proceeds are a vital source of cash for cities and towns — have fallen amid the recession. The state's two horse-racing and two former dog-racing tracks, which now offer only simulcast racing, also have suffered.

In 2007, Patrick proposed building three resort-style casinos across the state to create jobs, add tax revenue and capture some of the gambling dollars migrating to slot parlors and casinos in neighboring Rhode Island and Connecticut. Then-House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi opposed the plan, and it failed in the House by a vote of 108-44 in March 2008.

DiMasi resigned last year amid an ethics probe, and DeLeo has signaled his support for revisiting the issue.

Senate President Therese Murray, in her own appearance before the Chamber last year, mimicked pulling a slot-machine arm and said, "Ka-Ching!" when asked for her thoughts on expanded gaming in the state.

Both she and Patrick have since questioned the wisdom of slot parlors or so-called "racinos," saying they do not create many jobs, but the governor in particular has not threatened a veto over that provision.

The issue is personal to DeLeo, though. There are two in the Winthop Democrat's district: Suffolk Downs in Boston, which continues to offer live horse racing, and Wonderland in Revere, which offers only simulcast races after a dog-racing ban forced it to stop live greyhound races as of Jan. 1.

He told the chamber of commerce that putting "a limited number" of slots at venues that already have wagering will provide "a more immediate form of revenue."

And he said building two casinos — not the three proposed by Patrick — would avoid diluting their impact and "dooming them from the start."

DeLeo recalled his father "putting on his maitre d's tuxedo" and heading to work at Suffolk Downs.

"It may not have been glamorous for some of these folks, but it supported their families. And nothing is more important than that," he said.

While DeLeo pledged to file the bill this month, the immediate affect of any legislation is in doubt. The state would have to establish and staff a new gambling commission, and overhaul its criminal and financial-reporting statutes, before additional gambling sites are created.

The current Massachusetts fiscal year ends June 30, and the next begins July 1. Administration and legislative financial experts have been wary of factoring any gambling revenues into their budget proposals before the end of the next fiscal year on June 30, 2011.

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