Casino Gambling

BILOXI, Miss. - When Hurricane Katrina washed ashore here, it tossed most of the barge-based casinos off the Gulf of Mexico and onto dry land - and raised questions about the future of the industry on the Gulf Coast. Since the first slots landed here in 1992, casino gambling has found an especially profitable home on the low-tax Gulf Coast, a region that, until Katrina, was awash in a tourist boom. Now, the rebound of casinos in hurricane country will hinge as much on politics as on weather patterns.

Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. first voted against slot machines back in the early 1960s as a young state senator when the question was whether to ban the gambling devices in Southern Maryland. In his quiet way, he's still fighting them today - not as a crusader, but as someone who has read the research and concluded the social and economic costs outweigh the benefits to the public coffers. Curran, Maryland's longest-serving attorney general, will continue the battle today as guest speaker at the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling's annual conference at the Holiday Inn at Baltimore-Washington International Airport.

In his prime time speech to the nation a week ago, President Bush essentially made official what already had become clear over the past few months - the fate of his presidency depends on what happens in Iraq. By coming clean on the cost for the next year - $87 billion - Bush basically ruled out the possibility of his administration taking major policy initiatives in other areas. There can be tinkering around the edges of issues such as education and health care, but it will be impossible to find the money to spend on big domestic projects or to find support for more tax cuts.

NEW YORK -- Many people in the Catskills thought Robert A. Berman's dream of building a $500 million casino at the Monticello Raceway had died -- just like every other scheme to resurrect the faded resort area once known as the borscht belt -- when he lost his Indian partners three years ago. But Berman resurfaced, signing a definitive agreement recently to build a casino next to the aging track in partnership with the Cayuga Nation, a tribe that has...

WINDSOR, Ontario -- In Canada, they do math a little differently, at least as far as gambling is concerned. Authorities here figure that the government can make a lot more money if it owns casinos and pays experts from the gambling industry a fee to manage them. And they're right. Ontario struck a deal with a blue-chip Las Vegas company to manage Casino Windsor for 2.74 percent of the gross revenue from casino gambling and 5 percent of net profits. The province does not make these percentages public, but they have been reported by Canadian Gaming News, a journal that covers the gambling industry.

IF MARYLAND officials decide to bring back slot machines to the state, a body of scientific literature suggests we can expect an overall economic benefit with only modest increases in social problems. As chair of a research panel on gambling at the National Academy of Sciences, I've carefully reviewed most of the hundreds of studies on the costs and benefits of gambling and the relationship between gambling availability and the occurrence of pathological gambling. While the research on economic impact is limited and frequently reflects the bias of its sponsor, this much is clear: Adding slot machines would produce new revenue for the state.

As he battles for legislation allowing slot machines at racetracks, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. has made it clear that he opposes any effort to expand casino gambling to the Inner Harbor. He has come a long way since 1992. Eleven years ago today, Ehrlich -- then a Baltimore County delegate -- co-sponsored a House bill with Del. John S. Arnick that would have permitted casino gambling at the Power Plant in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. The 1992 legislation, which failed, would have allowed a variety of games -- including card games, wheels of fortune and Ehrlich's favorite, craps.

A group of politically connected developers that includes Baltimore's John Paterakis wants to build a retirement community, hotels, offices and other businesses at the site of a closed naval training center in Cecil County, officials confirmed yesterday. Paterakis has been a proponent of allowing casino gambling in Maryland, but the group's lead partner says casinos aren't part of the plan for the proposed $500 million-plus project. "There's no thought of that at all - zero," said Richard M. Alter, president of Columbia-based Manekin LLC. However, Alter said the group would be interested if Maryland officials ever open the door to casinos at selected sites and decide that the 1,200-acre former training center in Bainbridge would be a good location.

DOVER, Del. - Buoyed by the election of pro-slots governors in Maryland and Pennsylvania, casino company executives met with horse racing interests yesterday to talk legislative strategies for bringing slots to racetracks in those and other states. "It's not a matter of if it's going to happen, but when," said Don Snyder, president of Boyd Gaming, a major gambling company that owns the Stardust Casino in Las Vegas and several others around the country, including the Delta Downs racetrack casino in Vinton, La. Snyder was among several casino executives to address about 300 people who came to what was billed as the first national conference on bringing slot machines to horse tracks, creating a combination racetrack and casino.