New wagering option draws opposition

By Marc Kovac

Gov. Strickland presented the lottery game as a way to deal with budget issues.

COLUMBUS — Last year, lawmakers put the kibosh on smoking, stripping and so-called skill-based gaming in bars and storefronts across Ohio.

They finalized rules implementing an issue approved by voters that banned smoking in most public places.

They OK’d citizen-initiated legislation banning after-midnight activities at sexually oriented businesses.

And they outlawed electronic games, such as Tic Tac Fruit, that they deemed illegal gambling devices.

Bar and club owners, veterans groups and others were outspoken in their criticism of the moves, saying the new laws and rules would take customers away from businesses, forcing many to close, leaving hundreds of Ohioans out of work and cutting millions from the state’s tax revenue coffers.

Flash forward to today, when many of those same business owners will begin offering Ohio’s latest foray into lottery gaming. Keno wagering starts at 6 a.m., with the first drawing taking place around 11 a.m.

Gov. Ted Strickland first proposed the new game early in the year to deal with state budget issues. He said at the time: “I’m making a distinction that I think is a legitimate distinction between casino gambling or other kinds of gambling in Ohio. And the lottery, which is an activity that has been voted on by the people, has been supported by the people of this state for a long time, and this is an activity that is state-controlled [and] state-regulated, and I think there is a vast difference between what we have proposed and what has been proposed by some entities in the recent past.”

But some Republicans remain opposed to the move, including Sen. Ron Amstutz, a Republican from Wooster who introduced legislation that would have banned Keno.

No action on that bill appears imminent, and Amstutz said it may be time for a citizen-driven initiative ending the lottery in Ohio altogether.

“I am starting to think that we may have to take down the whole lottery to make this thing work,” he said, adding, “You’d have to do it over time, because it has become something of a revenue dependency in an important sector — that would be schools ... [But] it has absolutely been a detriment to the growth in school funding, because it hasn’t been a source of growth.”

In late January, shortly before his annual State of the State address, Strickland called a press conference to discuss looming budget issues and what his administration was doing to deal with them.

He said the state was facing a deficit of $733 million to $1.9 billion, and he outlined hundreds of millions in planned budget cuts at state agencies to keep spending in check.

At the Ohio Lottery Commission, administrators offered about $73 million in spending cuts for fiscal 2009.

But the commission also planned to “achieve its budget target by enhancing lottery revenues through refreshing game products and adding games, such as Keno and other monitor games, limited to age and time-controlled settings, such as bars and other similar venues,” according to documents.

The State Controlling Board finalized a contract with a Rhode Island company for the equipment and related costs to get the game up and running at about 2,000 retailers across the state. The cost: about $27 million over two fiscal years.

A group of Republican lawmakers nearly succeeded in derailing Keno. In late April, in a surprise move during a floor debate, Rep. John Adams, a Republican from Sidney, successfully added language banning Keno to an unrelated payday lending bill.

The amendment initially passed, on a vote of 49-46, and nearly went to a full floor vote before being removed.

Republican Speaker Jon Husted said afterward the move provided a means for some members of his caucus to voice their opposition to Keno and its potential effect on poorer Ohioans.

But Amstutz hasn’t given up in his fight against the expansion of gambling in Ohio. That could take shape as a citizens’ initiative ending the Ohio Lottery outright over a set phase-out period. “It can be stopped legislatively, but it’s not the only way it can be stopped.”

And Amstutz isn’t shy about describing his aversion to gambling:

“It’s very low-level, bottom-feeding kind of economic activity. It sucks part of the lifeblood out of our own work force here, and we can’t afford it.”

mkovac@dixcom.com