COLUMBUS | Ohio started down the slippery slope of expanding legalized gambling when it joined a multistate lottery last year to help solve a budget deficit, the Ohio Roundtable said Tuesday.

“The dominoes are all falling,” said David Zanotti, president of the Ohio Roundtable, a nonprofit group that has fought gambling efforts in the General Assembly and on statewide ballots.

Gov. Bob Taft sent a clear message to the gambling industry that Ohio was in play when the state joined MegaMillions, the Ohio Roundtable said. Now, state Sen. Louis Blessing, R-Cincinnati, plans to introduce a bill to allow video lottery terminals at Ohio racetracks; a bill pending in the Ohio Senate would allow Internet sales of lottery tickets and online keno games via the Ohio Lottery Commission; a possible statewide casino ballot initiative is being explored; and Indian tribal casinos are being talked about in Botkins, Youngstown and Sandusky, the Roundtable said.

Taft spokesman Orest Holubec said the governor opposes video lottery terminals and online gaming and his administration is monitoring tribal gaming developments. Ohio voters have twice defeated ballot proposals for casino gaming by wide margins, in 1990 and 1996. Taft believes voters would reject casino gaming again.

State Sen. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, who opposes gambling, said he expects Blessing’s bill to be introduced in the 11th hour of budget negotiations, when lawmakers must make tough choices. Even if VLTs, which are essentially slot machines, were included as part of the budget, Taft has said he would veto them without a vote of the people and it’s doubtful the House and Senate could muster enough votes to override a veto.

Nonetheless, the state’s seven racetracks and horsemen’s association formed the Ohio Horse Racing Council and hired Columbus political consultant Scott Borgemenke to advise them on what it would take to bring casinos to Ohio.

Zanotti said the Ohio Roundtable will fight any effort to bring casinos to Ohio — including by Indian tribes.

Botkins in Shelby County is being considered by an undisclosed tribe that wants to develop a $500 million bingo hall and gaming complex. Rumors abound about tribal casinos elsewhere in Ohio. As evidence of efforts in Youngstown, Zanotti pointed to a letter to the editor published in Ohio newspapers last year from Patrick MacKondy of the Casino for the Mahoning Valley Committee. He also contended that Victor Hugo, an Indian activist, has long pushed for Indian gaming in Sandusky.

State Rep. Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond, said a local banker told him about a year ago that he represented a tribe that was investigating putting a casino in Clermont County, Marietta or somewhere in northern Ohio.

Columbus-based lobbyist Tom Green said Ottawa Indians contacted him more than a year ago about establishing a tribal casino in Rossford, south of Toledo.

Efforts by the racetracks to add video lottery terminals and by tribes to open casinos appear unrelated. But if Ohio allowed VLTs anywhere in the state, then tribes would have a right to offer them as well, provided they meet federal rules and get an agreement with the state.

Ohio is attractive to the gaming industry because of its large, concentrated population and lack of established legal gambling.

The Ohio Roundtable is trying to get Ohio to retract from the lottery expansion it made last year. In its lawsuit against the state, the group claims the state violated the Ohio Constitution when it joined MegaMillions because not all proceeds go to Ohio education, it's not run by a state agency, and authority to join was rolled into legislation that dealt with a different subject. The case is in the Franklin County Court of Appeals, which heard arguments Tuesday.

[From the Dayton Daily News: 03.12.2003]

ohioroundtable.org is designed and hosted by: