Bailing Out A Dead Sport

Keep slots away from Rosecroft

THE MORE DESPERATE the nation’s fiscal outlook looks, the more appealing casinos appear to revenue-starved localities whose leaders see budgetary salvation in the ka-ching from slot machines. Such is the current impulse in Prince George’s County, where some leaders, having stood firm for years against installing a casino at Rosecroft Raceway, are now going wobbly .

The catalyst is Rosecroft’s new owner, Penn National Gaming, which, when it bought the bankrupt old track in January for $11 million, presented itself as the salvation of racing there. Now it turns out Penn wasn’t really very interested in Rosecroft beyond its potential as a venue for slots.

The company, a gambling industry giant, is preparing to mount a full-court lobbying press in Annapolis next year to push state lawmakers to authorize a large casino with slots at Rosecroft — something they have declined to do for years. If a bill to allow gambling at Rosecroft is passed in the legislative session that starts in January, voters would have the final say in a referendum in November 2012.

After the legalization of gambling in Delaware, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, Maryland voters in 2008 also approved a limited experiment with gambling — five casinos that would house 15,000 slot machines. So far, just two of those facilities — small ones — have opened; a third is under construction in Anne Arundel County.

It would be folly for the state to embark now on an expansion of gambling before the facilities it has already authorized are even built. And when many families are already hard pressed to make ends meet, lawmakers need to think seriously before seeding the state with more slot machines, which act as a tax on poor and working-class families, albeit a voluntary one.

Courting the support of state and local officials, Penn is reopening Rosecroft, which closed a year ago, for off-track betting this month and for live harness racing starting in October. Under prodding by the Maryland Racing Commission, it has agreed to open the track for 20 days of live racing this year — the first live racing there since 2008 — and 54 days next year, and to cover the anticipated losses from two years of racing, projected at $1.4 million or more.

Horse racing has deep roots in Maryland history. But it remains unclear why, if racing has become economically unviable, it should be bailed out by the state, especially if its survival means the expansion of slot machine gambling in communities that have rejected casinos for many years.

In effect, Penn and other casino operators are offering Maryland a deal with the devil — to further entrench an industry that hurts vulnerable families, attracts crime and fosters gambling addiction in return for money that lawmakers are reluctant to raise themselves by levying taxes. Lawmakers should resist the pressure, reject the deal and look for revenue elsewhere.