Who wins, who loses?

Who wins, who loses?

In retrospect, perhaps we should have recognized that Ohio was on a road that inexorably led toward legalized gambling.

Four constitutional amendments were beaten back over 20 years, but each effort had a twist that made it relatively easy for opponents to appeal to no-voters. Sooner or later, someone was likely to hit the jackpot.

An important factor in keeping previous proposals from being passed was that, in each case, a relatively small number of investors was seeking to encase in the Ohio Constitution their virtual monopoly on legalized gambling in the state.

The one thing that gambling opponents can take heart in is that the slot machines that will be coming to Ohio’s racetracks — various inevitable legal challenges notwithstanding — is being accomplished through an agreement by the Legislature and the administration and operated under the auspices of the Ohio Lottery Commission. If it doesn’t work, it could conceivably be undone legislatively, administratively or by referendum.

This gambling scheme was promoted by Gov. Ted Strickland, a past opponent of most legalized gambling proposals, and accepted with varying degrees of enthusiasm by the General Assembly. It was seen as the only way of avoiding either a tax increase or bigger cuts in the state budget than anyone in Columbus seemed ready to make.

Doing the math

Computing the economic effects of legalized gambling is something of a crap shoot.

The first question is whether the slot machines — which have been given a more antiseptic name, video lottery terminals — will produce $933 million to help fill the gap in the biennial budget. Simple accounting will answer that in two years.

The more difficult questions to answer will involve where the money came from. Gambling proponents like to suggest that most of it will come from the pockets of Ohioans who are already taking their money to casinos out of state or from people from neighboring states drawn to Ohio. More likely, hundreds of millions of those dollars will be discretionary family income that will be shifted from restaurants, theaters and sporting events to racetracks and their slot machines.

And the even more difficult question to answer will involve the offsetting social costs of problem gambling, as seen in bankruptcies, spousal abuse, child neglect and other anomalies.

Over the years, The Vindicator editorial board has been divided on the question of legalized gambling, and the issue has been hotly debated.

One of the editorial writers, Bertram de Souza, has made his preference for legalization clear in his columns, even as the paper ran editorials against it.

With this budget, de Souza, it appears, has won the argument. Certainly, whoever is running the strings of slots will win; the house never loses. Time will tell whether Ohio’s legislators, schools, social service agencies, non-gambling entertainment businesses and residents win or lose.