N.H. wise to block gambling

N.H. wise to block gambling
April 01, 2012

Of all the terrible arguments in favor of gambling, the fact that New Hampshire needs to act because Massachusetts has is unquestionably the worst.

"Since Massachusetts passed its gambling bill, doing nothing is no longer an option," Rep. David Campbell, D-Nashua, said Wednesday during an unsuccessful floor fight over a bill to allow four casinos and up to 14,000 slot machines into the Granite State.

"Unfortunately, Massachusetts still moves forward and serves as a potential magnet for New Hampshire jobs and revenue," said Rich Killion, spokesman for the pro-casino group FixItNow2NH, the Associated Press reported.

Ridiculous.

The last thing in the world New Hampshire should ever do is try to copy the corrupt, bloated and thoroughly dysfunctional government of Massachusetts, where the last three House speakers have been convicted of federal felonies, and patronage, nepotism and no-show jobs are common.

The reason Massachusetts needs gambling is that it is addicted to spending. When the going got tough during the Great Recession, instead of belt-tightening, as we did here in New Hampshire, Massachusetts decided to feed its spending habit by prostituting itself to organized gambling operators.

Massachusetts will soon find, as every other state that has allowed gambling out of desperation has found, this sort of political prostitution does not create a sustainable revenue stream. As the initial flow of gambling dollars slows, the gambling interests will seek more lenient laws and additional locations. Once they have more lenient laws, they'll begin to choke off the amount of money going to the state and the state will need to take what it can get to feed its addiction.

We say bravo to the New Hampshire House for resisting this phony revenue stream and for protecting not just our quality of life but also our common-sense world view that the way out of tough financial times is not through gambling but rather through thrift and hard work.

While gambling interests are having difficulty coming in the front door through the Legislature, they have found another insidious way to operate in the state, through unregulated and unaudited "charitable gaming" houses like those that have been operating at the Seabrook track and have recently sprung up in Hampton Beach and Hampton Falls. In theory, these charity gaming rooms are supposed to give 35 percent of all proceeds to local charities. But they are playing the people of New Hampshire for suckers.

This is a cash business with insufficient oversight. Who knows if they are really giving 35 percent? There is no accounting for the money. The charities don't want to complain because they need the money, but they have no way of knowing whether the lump sum they are receiving is 35 percent of the total take.

Perhaps voters in Hampton sensed this when they rejected a warrant article in the March town election put on the ballot by the Anzalone family of Ocean Gaming, which sought to add Lucky 7 and bingo to the town's gambling offerings.

Now that we in New Hampshire have said no to the big casino operators, we need to get a handle on the little guys. The state gets nothing from these operations. We urge our legislators to investigate "charitable gaming." It has been allowed to proliferate without oversight for long enough.