Casino Free New Hampshire: Sen. D'Allenandro introduces new casino bill

Some people don't know when to quit.

Sen. D'Allesandro's next tilt at legalizing casino gambling is underway. The senator has filed Senate Bill 551 "Establishing video lottery and table gaming at one location." The bill specifies that the casino will be at Rockingham Park in Salem and will be operated by Rockingham Park. The casino's operations will overseen by the State Lottery Commission. This approach is a significant departure from bills D'Allesandro has designed in recent attempts to cobble together legislative support. The bill will be heard by the Senate Ways and Means Committee. A date for the hearing has not yet been set. For updated information watch casinofreenh.org

Our mailing address is: Casino Free New Hampshire 2 Eagle Square, Concord, NH, United States Concord, NH 03301

New Hampshire: The Race to the Bottom

New Hampshire should not gamble on casinos

By Portsmouth Herald Editorial Board

December 12, 2013 2:00 AM

 

Casino operators will once again, in 2014, attempt to bamboozle the New Hampshire Legislature into approving expanding gaming.

 

Introducing Las Vegas-style casino gambling has been on the legislative docket for as long as we can remember, and each time the one-armed bandits come close. During the last session, the Senate passed Sen. Lou D'Allesandro's bill, SB 152, 16-8. That bill would have authorized a single casino with up to 5,000 slot machines and 150 table games at Rockingham Park. A House subcommittee rejected the casino bill by a single vote (thank you, Patti Lovejoy, D-Stratham) and the full House went on to defeat the bill 199-164.

 

Casino pushers were defeated despite the economic uncertainty caused by the lingering Great Recession. The bill's supporters promised money to every person and program in need and warned of dire consequences if we did not allow a casino. But common sense prevailed, the Legislature rejected gambling and New Hampshire has continued to provide essential services within a balanced budget and without selling our souls to outside casino interests.

 

And yet, like the proverbial bad penny, Sen. D'Allesandro promises to file another casino bill in 2014 that is pretty much the same as the bill defeated in 2013. It is expected to call for 5,000 slot machines and 150 gaming tables at a large single casino.

 

Slot machine champions think they have a hot hand this time because the Gambling Regulatory

Oversight Authority, which was created by pro-casino Gov. Maggie Hassan to address the state's lack of gambling regulations and oversight, has endorsed the D'Allesandro bill.

 

Objective observers might conclude that the fix was in from the start with this study group, and the fact it specifically endorsed a plan for 5,000 slot machines and 150 table games, the exact number requested in D'Allesandro's bill, undermines its credibility.

 

But the fact is, whether the Gambling Regulatory Oversight Authority acted in good or bad faith is irrelevant to the central question of whether New Hampshire should get into the casino business. The answer to that question remains a resounding "no."

 

To be clear, our opposition is not to gambling itself, but to New Hampshire linking its fortunes to the ups and downs of the casino industry. The facts clearly argue in favor of New Hampshire remaining independent and continuing on the successful and healthy path it has traveled for decades.

 

In the name of fiscal responsibility, we urge lawmakers to once again reject the fool's gold offered by casino operators and their supporters.

 

The numbers, which are the same as they were with last year's defeated bill, still don't add up to a substantial net gain for New Hampshire. Casinos have proliferated in every state where they are licensed to operate, so we are fooling ourselves if we think New Hampshire will be the exception to that well-documented story. Across the country, casino revenues have often not met expectations and have caused tax receipts to also fall short. This leads to proliferation as states feel pressured to allow more casinos to fund programs that expanded on promised casino money. Once the state gets hooked on casino money, the casino industry gains outsized influence on public policy. Once operating, casinos have been shown to hurt existing restaurant and hospitality businesses by using gambling money to subsidize meals and overpay for talent.

 

In our view, tying New Hampshire's fortunes to the gambling industry still remains a bad bet.

 

http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20131212-OPINION-312120371

 

 

Gaming Final Report Calls for New, Three-Division System

Charitable gaming reform and two bills are also among the final recommendations issued by the state's Gaming Regulatory Oversight Authority.

Posted by Kyle Stucker (Editor) , December 12, 2013

 

A group tasked with investigating how New Hampshire could expand into casino-based gambling recommends that a new, three-division gaming commission is needed, although the group says it isn't making a determination that expanded gambling is "good or bad for New Hampshire."

The New Hampshire Gaming Regulatory Oversight Authority has released a 44-page final report that outlines proposals for a variety of regulatory changes and a brand new system to oversee the state's expansion into casino gaming.

The new regulatory system recommended is a "unified" approach under the direction of a new gaming commission, according to the authority.

"Consistency of regulatory and operational standards and practices, as well as the need to achieve the most effective and efficient use of limited regulatory resources in a relatively small state, dictate movement to a unified agency model," stated authority members in a release Thursday afternoon. "At the same time, the unique needs of each of the three gaming sectors – the lottery, racing and charitable gaming, and casino-based gaming – require that the unified agency model have within it three separate divisions, one for each sector. And for both the lottery and the racing and charitable gaming sectors, retention of their respective commissions to perform discrete delegated functions will ensure that specialized expertise within each of these commissions will continue to be brought to bear on special issues unique to each sector."

The authority's report also puts forth two bills for the 2014 legislative session — one for expanded gaming, and one for "existing gaming." The latter would maintain current gaming oversight agencies, as the panel unanimously recommends against combining all regulatory responsibilities into a single state agency if efforts to bring a casino to New Hampshire aren't successful.

The expanded gaming bill would allow one casino in southeastern New Hampshire and outlines various measures to prevent deceptive advertising as well as provide funding for addiction treatment and prevention programs. The bill would allow a casino with the following limits and requirements, which the authority said it "invites the legislature to revisit":

• 2,000 up to 5,000 slot machines; 75 up to 150 table games.
• $450,000,000 minimum capital investment; annual capital reinvestment at 3.5% of revenues.
• $80,000,000 gaming license fee; $1,500,000 gaming license renewal fee after 10 years.
• Tax at 35% on gross slot revenue; tax at 18% on gross table game revenue.
• Annual $600 fee per slot machine; certain other application fees.

Other findings include the fact that the state needs to reform charitable gaming in order to ensure the nonprofits those establishments benefit are getting their full 35 percent of the gross revenues.

The state, according to the authority, also doesn't have enough resources to "ensure the integrity of charitable gaming," due in part to the fact that surveillance and supervision of games at these locations "is plainly insufficient."

The final report is posted as a PDF above. The two bills proposed by the authority as well as the report of the authority’s consultant, WhiteSands Gaming LLC, are posted on the authority’s website at www.nh.gov/groa/index.htm.



http://salem-nh.patch.com/groups/politics-and-elections/p/gaming-final-report-calls-for-new-threedivision-system

NH Charities opened the door to get sucked in....innocent enough....

Dianne M. Berlin

In my opinion, charities have cut their own throats when they opened the gambling doors.

$75M bet at NH's mini casinos for charity while fight rages over legalizing commercial casino

• By NORMA LOVE
  Associated Press
  Updated: December 08, 2013

SALEM, New Hampshire — As New Hampshire debates legalizing a commercial casino, the charities that rely on games of chance to raise millions of dollars every year worry that a big-name gambling hall would siphon off crucial revenue for the services they provide.

The 35 percent payout to charities after deducting prizes ranges from a few thousand dollars from a poker room operating three days a week to more than $60,000 from 10 days at Rockingham Park racetrack in Salem.

Wentworth-Coolidge Commission Co-chairwoman Gene Doherty says other fundraising efforts pale compared to the $37,744 the commission raised last year at Rockingham Park.

"A lot of fundraising dried up over the years. People want to give to children or the elderly," not to the upkeep of a historic building, Doherty said.

Gambling proceeds comprise 80 percent of the commission's budget, Doherty said.

"If it goes away, we will do some fundraising, but a lot of the support the state gets from us also will go away," she said.

New Hampshire has allowed the mini-casino operations since 1977 — often called Monte Carlo nights — with few limits other than on the size of the bet and the maximum days a charity can sponsor an event. Unlike commercial casinos, the maximum bet is $4, regulations aren't as stringent and video slot machines are illegal though some operators provide them as game machines that pay out prizes instead of cash.

A commission is drafting legislation to regulate casinos and casino bills are likely to arise in both houses of the legislature. A vote could come in 2014.

A law change in 2006 allowed private operators to run the games and turned the traditional Monte Carlo nights into seven-day-a-week, full-scale operations that rake in millions of dollars annually.

When the law first changed, game operators had to entice charities to sign up for game dates. Now, most have waiting lists, and state officials estimate $75 million is bet annually in the name of 389 charities.

The panel working on casino regulations also is considering a separate bill to tighten regulations governing charitable games of chance. Paul Kelley, director of the Racing and Charitable Gaming Commission, said if a commercial casino is approved, charities — especially in the southern part of the state where a casino is most likely — will feel the pinch.

One of the smaller participating charities is the Sisters of the Holy Cross in Manchester.

Sister Jacqueline Brodeur is in charge of raising money to support 103 older nuns and the nursing home that cares for many of them. The sisters receive $6,000 from gambling at Oceanfront Gaming at Hampton Beach — a "blip" in the budget, Brodeur says, but one that supplements the sisters' care and a small program in Manchester to teach English to immigrants.

Like Rockingham, Oceanfront Gaming scatters each charity's 10 dates throughout the year to give everyone some of the higher volume days.

"You always pray for a lot of summer dates. That's when people are at the beach, so you pray for summer," Brodeur said.

At Rockingham Park, the 36 charities with game dates there average $55,000 a year in profit from 10 days of gambling, the maximum days the state allows per charity. Rockingham, a potential site for a commercial casino, is the most profitable of the dozen game operators, paying 36 charities almost $2 million in fiscal 2013 — nearly half the $4.6 million charities received statewide from gambling.

Even though 190 charities are on Rockingham's waiting list, Brodeur is going to try to get in.

"We've got to look into it in order to survive," she said.

Arthur McLean, executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Derry, waited five years to get gambling dates at Rockingham. Last year, the club had four dates and raised about $20,000. This year, he expects to raise $50,000 toward its $1 million annual budget. It's not its biggest fundraiser, but if gambling revenue is cut off, McLean said programs would be reduced.

"We would lose employees. We have to keep our building open," he said.

http://m.therepublic.com/view/story/2ca51a692da549fa978b59346084f95a/NH-XGR--Charity-Gambling

What if gambling fails? (And it should)

Ah.....someone with some sense that Massachusetts lacks!

Editorial: What if gambling fails? (And it should)

Friday, February 15, 2013

 

 

Let’s hope that there’s a Plan B. While there’s much to love in the first budget presented by Gov. Maggie Hassan – including more money for higher education and $28 million to address the failing mental health care system – her plan counts on $80 million in revenue from licensing the state’s first casino. But expanded gambling is not the answer to the state’s structural deficit and revenue problems. We urge the New Hampshire House, which has rejected casino gambling on a host of occasions, to do so again.

Hassan supports a single, high-end casino in the southern part of the state, presumably at Salem’s Rockingham Park raceway. She included $40 million from the license fee in her 2014 budget and another $40 million the following year. Going forward, she assumes that the state will take in “tens of millions of dollars” annually by taxing the casino’s winnings. Both estimate are suspect, at best.

 

Given Massachusetts’s decision to site a casino somewhere between Boston and the New Hampshire border, and the national decline in gambling revenue, we doubt that anyone would pay $80 million for a license, unless that is, the state taxes casino revenue at a rate far lower than the rates charged by other states. It’s also unlikely that, even if approved, license revenue would arrive in time to balance the governor’s budget.

 

Both questions will be moot if the House says “no” to a casino. It has plenty of reasons to do so.

 

Former governor John Lynch, in the last days of his fourth term, listed some of them. Once one casino was permitted, he saw no way to prevent others from following. Neither do we. The state’s take from a single casino will never be enough to allow the state to meet its obligations, so the temptation to allow them to proliferate will be big. So will the influence on lawmakers of a growing gambling lobby with money to burn.

 

Casino revenue, as the New Hampshire Center for Public Policy Studies reported last month, continues to decline. The more casinos proliferate e_SEnD Maine now has two and Massachusetts will soon have three – the less revenue each will take in.

 

Any honest estimate of the state’s net take from a casino, or the number of jobs added, must consider the added expense of addressing the social costs that come with expanded gambling and the impact of diverting a large block of disposable income away from existing businesses. That will cost jobs. Add to that the damage expanded gambling will have on the state’s brand as a family destination and outdoor paradise, and the net financial effect will be negligible and perhaps even negative.

 

Hassan, with help from a volunteer team of old hands and budget experts, did an admirable job of creating a budget that goes a long way toward repairing the damage done by the last Legislature with irresponsible cuts to spending and revenue. Her proposals to build a 328-bed, $38 million women’s prison, spend $28 million to augment grossly inadequate mental health services, better fund higher education, and restore some money wrongly taken from the state’s hospitals, if implemented, could lead to the settlement of lawsuits. Her estimates of revenue increases from existing sources are conservative. But it’s hard to cheer a budget that’s based in good measure on something that shouldn’t happen.

 

The state has, in the past, balanced its budgets by taxing the poor at a rate four times that of the rich, by using federal money meant to provide health care for the poor to fill the general fund and, in the last budget, by taxing non-profit hospitals and hospice beds. Its governor now wants to meet the state’s needs in a way that guarantees more problem gamblers and gambling addicts and less revenue for the state’s existing restaurants and other businesses. That makes Hassan’s offering yet another disappointing budget.

 

http://www.concordmonitor.com/home/4481878-95/state-casino-revenue-budget

 

 

Salem: Ignoring the FACTS

Granite State Coalition Against Expanded Gambling prepared a great fact sheet, excerpts below:

· A substantial hidden cost of the typical casino results from the fact that 30-50 percent of gambling industry workers receive near-minimum wages, (the 2010 median wage including tips for all industry workers is $11.25 per hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics). The living wage needed to afford a 2 bedroom apartment in NH is $19.40 per hour.

· Low casino wages necessitate increased budgets for subsidized housing, public transportation, social services, and increased school budgets for services such as ESL, special education, and subsidized meals. These burdens fall back on local host and surrounding community property taxpayers.

· These cost burdens are significantly greater than the host and neighbor community revenue sharing in every draft of proposed casino legislation. Pro-casino Palmer, Mass community leaders have estimated the real costs of a casino to their community (see cost tabulation here); their key suggestion to host communities: secure a binding full cost mitigation agreement BEFORE casinos are legalized when community bargaining leverage is sufficient.

· After years of an unrelenting advertising and PR campaign by Millennium Gaming, the most recent New Hampshire gambling poll by Dartmouth College's Rockefeller Center found that 42 percent oppose and 41 percent support legalized slot casinos here. Democrats oppose by 44-35 and Republicans oppose by 43-42. These results were unchanged from last year’s.

· A March, 2010 UMass Dartmouth poll, administered by Hudson casino consultant Clyde Barrow, shows the extent to which the gambling industry has misinformed the public about the negatives of predatory gambling: 37 percent believe that slot casinos will NOT increase gambling addiction; 45 percent believe that slot casinos will NOT increase political corruption; 53 percent believe that slot casinos will NOT increase crime; 65 percent believe that slot casinos will NOT hurt small, local businesses.

· For the third year running, New Hampshire is ranked the safest state in the nation, Nevada the least safe. Public safety is among the most desired and critical goods provided by state and local government and is a crown jewel supporting our state’s economic competitiveness and high quality of life.

· For these reasons, the New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police and every New Hampshire Attorney General for the past thirty-four years have strongly opposed legalized slot casinos.

The FACTS don't change!


December 07. 2012

Casino referendum could go before Salem voters for input

By APRIL GUILMET
Union Leader Correspondent

SALEM - Granite State gambling advocates are still holding out hope that Rockingham Park could one day be the site of the state's first legalized casino.

On Dec. 17, the Salem Board of Selectmen will hold a public discussion on whether to add a nonbinding referendum to the March ballot regarding a potential casino.

A positive vote wouldn't be legally binding, but it would give Rockingham Park officials a chance to gauge their neighbors' thoughts on the matter.

"We're still in the early stages of this discussion, but the details will be publicly discussed during the upcoming meeting," Town Manager Keith Hickey said on Thursday.

Edward Callahan, Rockingham Park president and general manager, said park officials have been attempting to add a casino to the former horse track for many years now. Callahan said initial attempts were made back in 1994, when Lincoln Downs in Rhode Island opened its slot machines, and other racetracks around the nation followed suit.

[Misrepresenting history ignores that Lincoln Downs, now Twin River, filed for bankruptcy, eliminated taxpayer subsidized greyhound racing, the pretext of a Slot Barn.]

"At that time, we told the Salem selectmen we were interested in doing this too," Callahan said.

In March 1994, residents overwhelmingly approved a nonbinding vote to consider a Salem casino. A similar vote passed in 2003.

But since casino gambling has yet to be legalized in New Hampshire, those referendums never progressed further.

"Legislation has been a challenge," Callahan said. "But with a new governor soon to be in office, we feel it's time to see where the townspeople stand on this."

The historic racetrack dates to 1906, when the park opened for its first thoroughbred horse meet near the old Salem Depot. Gambling was still illegal in those days, so authorities shut down the operation within three days after learning that wagers were being processed underground. Over the years, the park was used for the now-defunct Rockingham Fair, a campsite for WWI soldiers, motorcycle races and a practice site for Olympic marathon runners. By 1933, gambling was legalized in New Hampshire and the park began holding regular horse races.

The park featured horse harness racing for a short time in 2009.

In 2010, the park was forced to discontinue live horse racing, though continues to offer simulcast racing and the occasional charity casino night event.

Last year a group of Salem town officials spent the day at The Meadowland, near Pittsburgh, Pa. The Meadowland is owned by the Millennium Gaming, the same developers hoping to restore the aging Salem racetrack to its former glory should casino gambling become legalized in New Hampshire.

Rockingham Park officials arranged for the trip, which was fully funded by the developers. Millennium Gaming still holds the option of opening a casino at the Salem racetrack if gaming is ever legalized in the Granite State.

Callahan noted that fans of casino gambling are now taking their business to places like Maine and Rhode Island, where casinos are legal.

"By opening up a casino at Rockingham Park, we'd be adding more [LOW WAGE] jobs to the area. We'd be keeping much of this revenue in New Hampshire," he said.

The Salem Board of Selectmen will publicly discuss the gaming referendum during its Monday, Dec. 17, meeting, which is set to begin at 7 p.m. in Salem Town Hall.

http://www.unionleader.com/article/20121207/NEWHAMPSHIRE1411/121209312

The Granite State Coalition Against Gambling has some great information on their web site here: http://www.noslots.com/


It seems a pity the uninformed have ignored it.

Just one casino?

Lamontagne favors Rockingham Park, his firm's client

By Annmarie Timmins and Matthew Spolar / Monitor staff

August 12, 2012

 

When he last ran for governor, in 1996, Ovide Lamontagne lambasted his opponent, Democrat Jeanne Shaheen, for wanting to bring slot machines to the state's racetracks. And he did so colorfully.

"Jeanne Shaheen wants to trade the Old Man of the Mountain for a neon horseshoe, a fishing hole for gaming tables," he told the New Hampshire Union Leader at the time. "This is not what New Hampshire is all about."

That was then.

Last week, Lamontagne, a Manchester Republican, told the Nashua Telegraph that he supports slot machines but only at Rockingham Park in Salem. Let's look at what Lamontagne didn't say: That his law firm, Devine Millimet, represents Rockingham Park. Nor did Lamontagne explain his evolved stance.

Yet Lamontagne did promise transparency if elected. "I certainly will be vigilant in making sure that if I do have some conflict . . . to disclose that," according to a video of the interview.

 

Ayup! No CONFLICT here!

We tried to reach Lamontagne late Thursday, but his spokesman, Tom Cronin, said the candidate's schedule was packed through Friday. Instead, Cronin offered his own response by email.

On Lamontagne's gambling position:

"From the start of this campaign, Ovide has said he is open to a very tight, specific plan for expanded gaming that authorizes a single casino at Rockingham Park, provided state revenues are used to fund existing obligations or lowering taxes, not growing government," Cronin wrote. "As in 1996, Ovide continues to oppose plans for expanded gaming that would allow the proliferation of casinos and slot parlors across the state."

In 1996, Shaheen was proposing hundreds of slot machines across the state, Cronin said. Lamontagne opposed that plan then and does now, he said.

On the law firm's connection to Rockingham Park:

"As one of the state's largest law firms, Devine Millimet is proud to represent hundreds of clients across New Hampshire," Cronin wrote. "Though Rockingham Park is a client of the firm, Ovide has not worked directly on that portfolio. Moreover, if elected governor, Ovide has pledge to sever all ties with his law firm - financial and otherwise - and will be making decisions based on nothing other than the best interests of the state."

When Lamontagne opposed gambling in 1996, his opposition was, in part, what it is now: He didn't want gambling revenue spent on new government programs. But he also said Shaheen's desire to expand gambling would ruin New Hampshire's way of life.

Asked by the Telegraph whether he still had qualify-of-life concerns, Lamontagne said he did.

"The legislation would have to deal with that," he said. "We'd have to see what the consequences were and what was really happening on the ground . . . and then make a decision as to whether this was working or not working before we'd even consider another site."

He said he supported gambling at Rockingham Park because the horse track there had been a gambling site for more than 100 years. The owners of Rockingham Park have pledged to invest $450 million in the park for a casino and a return of live horse racing if the Legislature allows expanded gambling.

"As I go around the state and I talk about this," Lamontagne told the Telegraph, "even the people who are generally opposed to expanded gaming, and I would say I am, say, 'All right, a Rockingham (Park) solution, I could live with that.' "

The other major gubernatorial candidates, Republican Kevin Smith and Democrats Maggie Hassan and Jackie Cilley, also support some expanded gambling.

• Smith supports two gaming licenses, not one, and he would require they be awarded by a competitive bid process, he said. He would also require that the revenue be used to reduce property taxes, support education or pay for state projects like the widening of Interstate 93.

Smith, like Lamontagne, has spoken out against expanded gambling in the past, both as a former state representative and when he was the director of Cornerstone, a conservative political action nonprofit.

He said Friday that his position hasn't changed: Then, like now, he is against widespread gambling and putting any gambling revenue into the general fund.

• Hassan is open to bringing one "well-regulated, high-end casino"  [Where have we heard that before? Oh! Right! Massachusetts!] to the state but would require a competitive bidding process for the license, her spokesman Matt Burgess said. The revenue, Burgess said, could pay for education "or other essential state services that are currently not being funded adequately."

• Cilley would support expanded gambling under limited conditions: The local community would have to want it; there would have to be close oversight; and there would have to be a wall between the gaming industry and its ability to influence legislation.  [Never happen!]

She said she's open to discussing casinos in New Hampshire but isn't convinced the predicted revenue, which she said is $45 million to $100 million, is worth it.

http://www.concordmonitor.com/article/347807/just-one-casino?page=full

 

New Hampshire doesn't want to imitate Massachusetts

NH lawmakers kill gambling bill
Salem officials disappointed in casino measure's defeat
By Doug Ireland
The Eagle Tribune Mar 29, 2012

SALEM — Local officials are frustrated that legislation to allow a casino at Rockingham Park was defeated by lawmakers yesterday.

The House of Representatives voted 236-108 to kill House Bill 593, disappointing those who hoped expanded gambling could help boost economic growth.

Millennium Gaming of Las Vegas has an option to buy Rockingham Park to establish a casino [Slot Barn]. But gambling legislation has been defeated repeatedly, and Gov. John Lynch has vowed to veto any such bills that reach his desk.

The legislation was killed yesterday after the House debated the bill and various amendments for an hour. A key amendment that would increased the number of casinos allowed in New Hampshire from two to four was killed 195-154.

The bill was then voted down, 226-118, followed by another vote to kill it.

"I'm not giving up hope," he said. "I still think it's a good thing and, obviously, the town supports it. We'll fight on."

House Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt, R-Salem, said Lynch's vow to veto gambling legislation played a big role yesterday.

Weyler said he believes many lawmakers changed their minds at the last minute, persuaded by anti-casino lobbyists who downplayed the potential economic benefits.

While supporters of the bill have said expanded gambling would pour at least $50 million into the state's economy each year, opponents have said it would lead to crime and corruption.

Proponents have also said Massachusetts' recent approval of casinos means New Hampshire would lose millions in annual revenue if the Legislature rejected the bill.

Rep. Sherman Packard, R-Londonderry, disagrees.

"That's all speculation," he said.

Packard said he voted against HB 593 for several reasons.

"It's bad legislation — it wasn't crafted properly," he said.

The proposal called for too many video slot machines — 14,000 in New Hampshire — and allowed for the gaming industry to reap too much of the economic benefit, he said

The state would have received 40 percent of video slot machine proceeds and 8 percent from table games.

Jim Rubens, spokesman for the Granite State Coalition Against Expanded Gambling, was pleased with the outcome. He said casino opponents put up the toughest fight yet.

"It was amazing, and remarkable with what we were up against this year," Rubens said. "We're hoping the gambling industry will finally get the message that New Hampshire doesn't want to imitate Massachusetts."

Shovelling "Anecdotal" Horse Manure!

Is there any indication that State Trooper Seth Cooper, the president of the N.H State Troopers Association actually conducted any solid research of his own by reviewing FBI crime statistics [in the article below]?

Spring is arriving soon and we all need plenty of manure...for the garden that is, but not for public policy.

With all of the issues surrounding PREDATORY GAMBLING, the Gambling Industry has bought and paid for its share of SHILLS willing to prostitute themselves, say what needs to be said to propagandize the public into believing the falsehoods [dare we call them LIES?].

The Gambling Vultures are desperate and don't want the truth to be known, much like the Tobacco Industry paying doctors to promote smoking as harmless entertainment.


Last week, the media repeated the nonsense about the Connecticut Slot Parlors, when this is widely known: A couple of obstacles stand in the way. First, many of the larger casinos are on tribal land, and so crime data is collected by tribal police who don't need to report or release their findings in the same way U.S. law enforcement does.
(From: Do more casinos mean more crime? )


Las Vegas’ crime rate is 1,040 percent higher than Branson’s and 15.7 times higher than Bloomington’s, Grinols reported, although both destinations draw far more visitors per resident than does Las Vegas.

From: Bet on gambling? Oh?


Do your homework, folks! The lipstick doesn't transform the pig.

Troopers Association Favors Casino Bill
But the state coalition against the bill calls their position "objectively false."
By Jake O'Donnell

The fight over expanded gambling in New Hampshire has a state organization tied to law enforcement at odds with the coalition trying to stop the most recent form of casino legislation.

In February, State Trooper Seth Cooper, the president of the N.H State Troopers Association, testified in front of the N.H. House Ways and Means Committee in favor of House Bill 593, a bill that would legalize video slots and create four casino licenses in the state.

Cooper said his association has conferred with similar associations in Connecticut and Delaware, states with casino gambling. They asked about a possible increase in crime as a result of casinos.

"The boots on the ground aren't seeing this mass influx of low-end people with massive drug problems and causing rampant armed robberies on every street corner," Cooper told the committee. "They just aren't seeing it." [What a dumb statement!]

Cooper said the biggest increase in crimes will come as a result of an increase in people in a given area if casinos are legalized. He likened that increase to what happens in the North Country during ski season.

"We see different crimes that occur when you bring in more bodies," he said. "We have a rise in DUIs in the winter time, but I don't think anyone's going to outlaw skiing anytime soon. There have been no real mass murders, no real high impact of violent crimes that have come with these casinos that have gone into those two states."

Jim Rubens, the chair of the Granite State Coalition Against Expanded Gambling, said a recent study indicates the facts do not rest with Cooper's evaluation.

"A claim that a Salem casino would cause no more incremental crime than would a shopping center or ski area attracting the same number of visitors is objectively false," Rubens said.

Rubens cited the New Hampshire Gaming Study Commission Report from 2010 which showed that a casino in Salem would add 1,200 serious crimes each year in Salem and surrounding communities. The commission unanimously agreed with this assessment and Rubens said half the commission members were pro-casino.

"The Commission carefully evaluated voluminous evidence on the crime-casino link presented by both sides," Rubens said.

The N.H. Association of Chiefs of Police are part of the Granite State Coalition Against Expanded Gambling. Rubens said the chiefs, as well as every state Attorney General for the last 35 years, have been opposed to expanded gambling because those additional crimes "have large cost to victims and to the New Hampshire quality of life."

HB 593 recently came out of Ways and Means by a 14-7 vote with new amendments, including the aforementioned change from two casino licenses to four.

It's widely expected that Rockingham Park in Salem would be in the running for a casino license should expanded gambling become law.

Massachusetts Gambling Addict Cheats 83 Year Old

Police: Man finances gambling spree with elderly neighbor's credit card
By Julie Manganis
Staff writer The Eagle Tribune


PEABODY — An 83-year-old Dracut woman thought she could rely on her neighbor for help with errands when she was too ill to go out. Instead, she became the victim of credit card fraud, investigators say.

James Hughes, 51, who lived with his mother in the same condo complex as the victim, used the woman's credit card for gambling trips to the Foxwoods casino and the racetrack at Rockingham Park, as well as at stores all over the northeastern part of the state, racking up more than $48,000 in charges, according to state police assigned to the Electronic Crimes Task Force.

He also used the card at other places more than 100 times, including at stores in Peabody and Middleton, as well as in Methuen, Lowell and Chelmsford, investigators say.

And when state police showed up at his mom's condo to question him, they described him as "extremely distracted" by an online card game, Trooper Christopher O'Neil wrote in his report.

Hughes is now facing multiple counts of larceny from a person over 60 and credit card fraud in several jurisdictions, including Salem, Lawrence and Lowell.

He had been held on $45,000 cash bail, set last month by Peabody District Court Judge Richard Mori, but yesterday, Salem Superior Court Judge Timothy Feeley reduced it to $2,500.

That bail reduction came despite an incident in 2010 when Hughes used a spare key to the victim's apartment to get in and hide from police while she was temporarily in a nursing home, according to police. Police found him in a closet, according to O'Neil's report.

The credit card transactions were discovered last fall while the victim's nieces and nephew were going over her finances. At first, the woman, believing Hughes might have charged just a few thousand dollars, didn't want to press charges, but as the figure grew, she spoke to police.

Many of the gambling transactions occurred while the woman was temporarily in a nursing home in 2009, investigators said.

Hughes' lawyer, John Lalikos, has filed a motion seeking to dismiss the charges, contending that there's not enough probable cause to charge Hughes with a crime. A hearing on that is scheduled today in Peabody District Court.