Slot Machines

Serving midday beers at Colleen's Corner Tavern in Baltimore's blighted Westport neighborhood, Mike Eanes wasn't so sure that slot machines were the answer to the area's woes. "There comes a lot of grief with that kind of stuff," Eanes said yesterday when told that Gov. Martin O'Malley had proposed a referendum to approve slot machine gambling in five places, including along the Patapsco River's Middle Branch, which Westport overlooks. "You get high crime and riffraff, so I don't know how that would play out in the neighborhood."

The horse-racing business in Maryland is worth trying to save, for three main reasons. It employs about 9,000 people; the Preakness is a great national showcase for Baltimore; and, maybe most important, the horse farms in the state supported directly or indirectly by racing occupy 685,000 acres of land as open space, about a tenth of all the open space in Maryland. But slot machines are not the way to save the horses. On Tuesday, the administration of Gov. Martin O'Malley began distributing a report by Thomas E. Perez, the secretary of labor, licensing and regulation, that examines the impact of slots on neighboring states and on their racetracks, and finds it to be significant.

Local government officials could block the legalization of slot machine gambling in their communities even if voters in 2008 approve a ballot initiative passed this week in the General Assembly, a lawyer with the Maryland attorney general's office said yesterday. A little-noticed provision in the referendum legislation that orders state slots operators to comply with local zoning regulations essentially allows local authorities to exercise final say, said Kathryn M. Rowe, an assistant state attorney general who deals with bills passed by the legislature.

The General Assembly's passage of a slot machine gambling referendum sets the stage for an extraordinary public campaign that some believe will rival the most bitter state political races, in a year when the 2008 presidential contest will drive high voter turnout. Rare alliances will be forged on both sides of the issue as they mount multimillion-dollar advertising and organizing efforts in advance of the November 2008 referendum. "We need a lot of little heroes," said W. Minor Carter, a lobbyist for StopSlots Maryland, a grass-roots organization that he believes will have an organizing advantage.

Gulfstream Park, South Florida's major thoroughbred horse-racing track, installed slot machines last year, rows and rows of them. And gamblers came. Then they stopped. Today, many of those machines have little to do. The average one took in $74 a day after winnings in the July-September quarter, and that was before operating costs and state and local officials and others took a cut of more than 60 percent. It's a fraction of what neighboring slots parlors collected and is so little that the racetrack can't service the debt it took on to build the casino.

The Maryland Senate approved legislation yesterday that would expand government-funded programs to provide medical coverage to more of the state's 800,000 uninsured, boosting the measure's chances just months after a similar proposal died in that chamber. The Senate voted 30-17 to pass the bill, which was championed by Gov. Martin O'Malley, and the House of Delegates is expected to act on heath care legislation in the coming days. Both versions would allow more adults to be eligible for Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for the poor, and extend insurance premium subsidies to small businesses and their employees.

When the General Assembly adjourns tonight, leaders in the state Senate, the House of Delegates and the administration of Gov. Martin O'Malley will have demonstrated that they can work together - so long as they ignore the fundamental issues that divide them. The 423rd session of the Maryland General Assembly is meandering to a close as lawmakers work out technical details on remaining issues. Legislators considered issues such as immigration and the abolition of the death penalty this year but appear likely to leave Annapolis without having gotten bogged down in divisive debates like those that occurred during recent sessions over slot machines, electric rates and malpractice reform.

Gov. Martin O'Malley said yesterday that he favors a special session of the General Assembly in the coming months to solve Maryland's projected $1.5 billion budget shortfall. The Democratic governor has not begun the formal process of calling a special session, but yesterday he made his strongest statements to date in support of bringing lawmakers back to Annapolis this fall to debate taxes, spending and slot machine gambling. O'Malley has been working to find a consensus with the Democratic leaders of the General Assembly, and he said he would need to do so by the beginning of October to make a special session worthwhile.

A more than 50 percent increase in administrative expenses, due in part to a controversial advertising campaign to win support for slot machines, nearly consumed all the profits of Maryland's major thoroughbred racetracks last year.The Maryland Jockey Club, owner of Pimlico Race Course and Laurel Park, reported a combined profit of $136,547 for 1998, down from $1.9 million the year before, according to financial reports the tracks filed yesterday with the Maryland Racing Commission.Track officials did not respond to requests for explanation last night.

GOV. Parris Glendening may not have intended it that way, but his actions in this past General Assembly session may ultimately be viewed by historians as the turning point in bringing slot machines to Maryland.Yes, slots may be headed this way. Not next month or next year. But in the first half of the next decade, you may be able to find them at race tracks, certain Maryland hotels and possibly at Indian casinos.It could be an ironic turn of events: The "No Slots, No Casinos, No Way" governor paving the road for a Delaware slots and race track operator to build a track in Western Maryland that could be a pretext for pressing for slot machines in Maryland.

The good news is that after years of debate, a constitutional amendment and months of stops and starts, Maryland is on the verge of actually buying the slot machines that will partially solve its budget problems. The bad news: In the middle of an economic crisis and plunging tax revenues that are forcing severe cuts to health care, education and other top priorities, the state is likely to be shelling out millions more than budgeted if it wants to buy top-notch machines. Analysts expect that operating expenses for Maryland's slots program - including the procurement of machines - will cost the state $65 million a year, while the 2 percent of slots proceeds set aside to cover them will generate about $27 million.

The slots parlors coming to Maryland are expected to feature electronic gambling terminals that incorporate popular game shows, celebrities and even life-size digitized blackjack and poker dealers. The state's effort to purchase such elaborate machines could begin as soon as next week and would mark a major milestone for a program that has gotten under way in fits and starts since voters approved slots last year. But the strategy could saddle taxpayers with millions of dollars per year in additional costs in the middle of a state budget crisis and faces criticism from gambling foes who say the parlors once described as limited forays into gambling are becoming more like full-blown casinos.

Last week's latest round of budget cuts, a hefty $454 million in reductions that included layoffs, furloughs, and hits to community colleges, health departments, road repair, public safety and local aid, has heightened the urgency to bring slot machines to Maryland as voters approved overwhelmingly last year. The national economic recession is shrinking state and local government faster - and perhaps more painfully - than expected. The potential hundreds of millions of dollars of new revenue generated by slot machines would go a long way toward alleviating that discomfort.

Outside, Baltimore's proposed casino would have an industrial look inspired by old warehouses in the surrounding area and a shop-lined pedestrian zone reminiscent of the Eutaw Street promenade at Oriole Park. Inside, it would have "neighborhoods" filled with slot machines; a 400-seat buffet-style restaurant that would turn into a nightclub in the evening; a 120-seat "chop house" and a 100-seat main bar. Designed to hold up to 5,000 people at a time, it would be open from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m, seven days a week.

A plan to move the proposed site for a Baltimore slots casino has drawn a protest from the operator of Laurel Park racetrack, who wants the state to rebid the gambling licenses. City officials have promoted the plan to move the slots parlor to a parcel on Russell Street with extra space to accommodate more machines and possibly retail shops, a theater and night club. But other potential operators have said they might have bid if they had known a new location was available. The city-owned parcel had previously been promised to another developer, who planned to build a sports complex there.

BELMONT, N.Y. -- Perhaps more than any horse in the field of the Belmont Stakes, it's almost impossible to predict what Dunkirk is going to do Saturday. When he was purchased for $3.7 million at auction, plenty of people expected big things from Dunkirk, including his trainer, Todd Pletcher. But it has been something of a roller-coaster ride since. The horse almost didn't make the Kentucky Derby field through graded earnings, then did get in and went off as the second choice at 5-1. The horse stumbled out of the gate and then got pinched between Pioneerof the Nile and Papa Clem at the halfway point and finished 19 lengths behind eventual winner Mine That Bird.

For about two minutes late Saturday afternoon, the fastest 3-year-old horses on the planet will run on the 1 3/16 -mile dirt track at Pimlico Race Course in the Preakness Stakes. This is the middle jewel in horse racing's Triple Crown, and no Baltimore sporting event is bigger, livelier or more steeped in history and convention. From the Woodlawn Cup to the blanket of black-eyed Susans that will grace the neck of the winner, the raucous infield crowd and the well-dressed ladies in the grandstand and corporate tents, it's hard to imagine Baltimore's third Saturday in May without the familiar scene at Old Hilltop.

Airport slots parlor is a terrible idea When the citizens voted to allow five slot machine licenses in Maryland, they probably thought the legislature would stop wasting time with slot machine bills ("House bill would allow 3,000 slot machines at BWI," Feb. 17). Right? Wrong. House Bill 777 would "alter the number of lottery facility operation licenses and number of video lottery terminals that may be awarded to provide for the award of a video lottery facility operation license at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport."

A Baltimore County lawmaker is proposing slot-machine gambling at Maryland's major airport, but Gov. Martin O'Malley called the casino a "bad idea," limiting its chances at a time of slots-related buyer's remorse in Annapolis. Del. Eric M. Bromwell's House Bill 777 - the airplane-related number is a coincidence - would add Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport to the list of locations for the casino licenses approved by voters last year. The bill, co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of 11 Baltimore County and city lawmakers, would allow 3,000 slots in the terminal area.

How many different ways can Maryland's slots proposal be messed up? Perhaps this was all predictable from the start. Has there ever been a state that has acted so ambivalently over slots? That has had such a long-running, love-hate, passive-aggressive relationship with the darn things? That has flirted with them for years and years but, now that they're finally on our doorstep, can't quite bring itself to seal the deal with a satisfying, yes I said yes I will Yes ending? More like, maybe I said maybe I will Maybe, as it's turned out, even though voters supposedly settled the matter back in November when they amended the Constitution to let 15,000 of the machines into the state.