COLUMBUS Tribal casinos slated for Ohio, group says

A lawsuit aims to prevent Ohio from joining in the multistate Big Game lottery.
COLUMBUS -- The Ohio Roundtable released a letter Wednesday sent to all members of the Ohio General Assembly warning of the danger of tribal gambling casinos' opening in Ohio.
The Roundtable enclosed a letter to the editor from the Casino for the Mahoning Valley Committee, a tribal gambling proponent, citing evidence of tribal plans to open Las Vegas-style casinos in Ohio.
At a Columbus news conference Jan. 15, the Roundtable discussed the possibility of tribal gambling expansion into Ohio.
Quotable: "There is no question tribal concerns are watching the governor, the General Assembly and the Lottery Commission, waiting for the smallest opening to bring tribal gambling to Ohio," stated David Zanotti, president of the Ohio Roundtable.
"It is critical that the same voters who overwhelmingly rejected casino gambling in 1990 and 1996 be alerted to the inevitable linkage between gambling expansion and tribal casinos. If the governor and the General Assembly keep playing around with expanding gambling -- every Ohio community is going to get burned."
The Roundtable has filed suit along with six other plaintiffs to stop the lottery from expanding into the multistate Big Game. A hearing on that suit is scheduled April 29 before Judge Hogan in Franklin County Court.
The Roundtable, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy organization founded in 1980, helped lead the successful campaigns against casino gambling in 1990 and 1996.
The organization has also led campaigns for term limits, campaign finance reform, voter registration and nonpartisan voter information over the past 22 years.