Another group ready to spin Ohio’s wheel of fortune

Vindicator Editorial: January 16, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

Round and round it goes, where it stops, nobody knows.

And so it is with the recurring efforts by backers of various casino gambling initiatives to win the approval of Ohio voters.

No sooner, it seems, is one initiative defeated — as one was in November — than another pops up.

The Columbus Dispatch reported this week that Penn National Gaming has a proposal to build casinos at Ohio’s seven racetracks and at stand-alone sites in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus.

Meanwhile, two Cleveland-area developers are preparing a signature-gathering effort to place their own ballot measure on this November’s ballot. Their plan would also build casinos in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus, and possibly in Toledo and Youngstown.

Look at their flaws

These proposals contain the same fatal flaw that every other gambling issue to be placed on the Ohio ballot. They would encase in the Ohio Constitution a right that would be specific to a group of investors to own, operate or control gambling enterprises in the state.

Owning a casino is as close to it gets as being able to print your own money. As every gambler knows, the house never loses. Encasing a gambling franchise in the constitution of the state is horrible public policy.

Generally, this newspaper has opposed attempts to legalize gambling in the state. Gambling, even legal gambling, provides an atmosphere in which public corruption can too easily take root. Why invite such an occasion of corruption into your community?

We remain convinced that the dividends paid by casinos to a community are, at the end of the day, dwarfed by the social costs of gambling — higher bankruptcies, broken marriages, abused children. Granted, there are recreational gamblers who can enjoy an occasional night at the casino and neither they nor their families are unfavorably affected, but there are far too many for whom gambling becomes a disabling habit.

Shuffling the dollars

Finally, with few exceptions, gambling is not an effective economic development tool. Unless it draws people from a wide area in large numbers — think Las Vegas — it really does little more than redistribute an area’s discretionary spending. Every $1,000 a casino takes in is $1,000 that won’t be spent for restaurant meals or show tickets elsewhere. The casinos win, while local family-owned businesses lose.

These, of course, are trying times for states and the promise of quick and easy money is almost irresistible. But Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland the General Assembly should continue to resist. There are no quick fixes to Ohio’s budget problems or its economic development deficiencies. But if there were, casino gambling or slot parlors would not be among them.