Video slot proposals keep going around and around

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
And so it is with the owners of horse racing tracks in Ohio, who, along with their most ardent supporters, are bound and determined to turn the tracks into miniature casinos by installing thousands of video slot machines at the state's seven tracks.
Voters have rejected casino gambling in Ohio before, and until recently the most vociferous opponents of gambling were conservative lawmakers. Republicans used to believe that there was no such thing as a free lunch. But then money got tight, and, faced with the prospect of raising taxes or tapping the income promised by would-be slot machine magnates, many Republicans abandoned their old-time religion. A cynic might suggest that campaign money spread around by gambling interests also figured into the mix.
At any rate, here we go again.
Action this week
It appears that the Senate will vote this week on a new video slot proposal. This time, scholarship money will be the carrot attached to the stick being dangled in front of voters by legislators and track owners.
State Sen. Louis W. Blessing, Jr., a Cincinnati Republican, says the state's take from the slot machines will provide scholarships for the top 10 percent of Ohio's graduates -- as much as $5,900 per student, renewable for as many as three years.
"I think it is the most sweeping and historical financial aid program ever developed in the state of Ohio," says state Sen. Kevin Coughlin, chairman of the Senate State and Local Government and Veterans Affairs Committee.
Then again, maybe it's just another way to get a reluctant demographic behind the video-slot movement. Suddenly, every voter who thinks his child or grandchild is in the top 10 percent academically -- which is probably about 50 percent of all parents and grandparents -- sees Johnny or Jane going off to college for free.
We've said it before, and we'll say it again. Legalized gambling is the most efficient method devised by man to redistribute wealth. It takes from the poor and gives to the rich.
Paying the piper
In an editorial on the subject a few months ago, the Christian Science Monitor noted that personal bankruptcy rates go up 14 percent within a 50-mile radius of casinos. Crime rates go up about 8 percent.
We have to wonder, for every Ohio kid who gets a scholarship from the video slot windfall, how many spouses will be abused by the problem gamblers in their families, how many children will be deprived of life's simple necessities? "States often see this as a tax on the willing; but it's also a tax on the unwell," says Keith Whyte, executive director of the National Council on Problem Gambling.
Advocates for gambling say that such arguments are invalid because responsible gamblers should not be deprived of something they enjoy because of a minority of problem gamblers. But in this case, Ohio's legislators are not pushing video slot machines as a civil rights issue for casual gamblers. They are defining it as a good thing for the state of Ohio and its citizens. And when they do that, it is fair for opponents of gambling to demand that the General Assembly look at the big picture.
But they won't. The video slot issue is on the Columbus fast track.
Between now and March, when the issue is likely to appear on the ballot, Ohio voters will have to ask the hard questions that legislators have become adept at avoiding.