Friday, March 02, 2001
By JULIE CARR SMYTH
PLAIN DEALER BUREAU
From the Plain Dealer

COLUMBUS - Powerful gambling interests, including the nation’s top slot-machine manufacturer and the owners of Ohio’s seven horse tracks, for months have been underwriting a quiet effort to legalize video lottery terminals in Ohio.

Since last summer, racing interests have poured tens of thousands of dollars into political campaigns and lobbying contracts, hoping to persuade legislators to allow the slot machinelike terminals only at state-regulated race tracks.

Yesterday, an anti-gambling coalition that de feated two statewide casino initiatives in the 1990s launched a public counterattack, promising to fight in court any effort to slip such a plan into Gov. Bob Taft’s education budget.

"This would be one of the most disgusting things, one of the most illegal things we’ve ever seen - after two votes, after a 10-year debate, when we won with 62 percent of the vote [in both 1990 and 1996]," said David Zanotti, president of the Ohio Roundtable and Freedom Forum. "Now they’d have seven [casinos] without a vote of the people."

Zanotti said the groups also would try to block Taft’s proposal to expand the Ohio Lottery into a multistate game, such as Powerball or

the Big Game, to raise $70 million for schools. They argue that tacking the initiative onto the education budget violates a rule restricting bills to a single subject.

But if Taft’s idea of a multistate game fails, as it did last session, it could actually bolster efforts in the Senate to legalize video lottery.

His plan would add $70 million to state coffers over the two-year budget cycle while VLTs would add an estimated $233 million.

Although Taft has said he opposes VLTs, he stopped short of saying he would veto their legalization.

And now that Taft has come out in favor of lottery expansion to help schools, Zanotti said, it would be difficult for him to oppose the video lottery idea.

Those lobbying Taft and law makers on the issue are well- organized and well-funded, according to state records.

Some of the state’s highest- powered lobbying firms have been engaged by track interests and by International Game Technology, the nation’s top slot- machine maker. IGT dominates the video lottery markets in both Delaware and West Virginia, two of three states that currently allow VLTs at their race tracks.

Last fiscal year, IGT made $1.8 million in commissions on its Delaware machines, according to Delaware Lottery Director Wayne Lemons. He said the video lottery netted $450 million last year.

Meanwhile, video lottery supporters appear to be working the hardest to influence fledgling House Speaker Larry Householder.

Between June and October 2000, as Householder sought and won re-election, he received more than $27,150 in campaign contributions from gambling and racing interests, according to campaign finance reports. The figure represents nearly 4 percent of the $765,000 in contributions Householder received last year.

The total includes checks from

out-of-state track owners, racing PACs, lobbyists and developers with stakes in gaming expansion.

Householder, who heads the least politically predictable legislative chamber, said yesterday that, aside from the contributions, he had not been aggressively lobbied on the VLT issue. He said he had not decided how he felt about it.

"The thing that makes sense about it is putting them at tracks where gambling is already going on. Those folks know why they’re there," Householder said. "But it’s one of those issues where you can see both sides of it."

One group of River Downs owners, most listing addresses outside Beverly Hills, Calif., gave Householder $14,000 in a two-day period just weeks before the election.

Jack Hanessian, general manager of the Cincinnati-based River Downs, said the selection of Householder to replace former Speaker Jo Ann Davidson, who was forced out in December due to term limits, raised the hopes of video lottery advocates.

"You wouldn’t expect me to send money to someone who didn’t support my industry," Hanessian said. "But it’s not like [Householder] said, Give me

money and I’ll make this happen.’ Politics doesn’t work that way."

Householder said, as a supporter of Ohio agriculture, he had backed the racing industry in the past. Racing revenues help support veterinary programs at Ohio State University, rural communities, and the state and county fairs.

Ohio’s race tracks have been struggling to find ways to generate more business, and believe the VLTs would help them retain existing customers and attract new ones.

Senate President Richard Finan, whose Cincinnati district competes fiercely with Kentucky’s noted race tracks and gambling venues in neighboring West Virginia and Indiana, generally believes approaches to expanding the lottery should be viewed as business decisions by a state that is already in the lottery business.

But he said it was anybody’s guess how the Senate would side on video lottery.

"I don’t think anybody has a clue what’s going to happen with it," Finan said. "A lot of people are interested in it, a lot of lobbyists are pushing it, and then there are a lot of people who hate it."

E-mail: jsmyth@plaind.com