Tuesday, January 16, 2007

On a Monday afternoon last month, five men and a woman sat with their backs
to a checkout counter at an Interstate 65 truck stop in Southern Indiana,
sliding $10 and $20 bills into a row of Cherry Master gambling machines.
It's hardly an unusual sight. Each year in Indiana -- and Kentucky --
millions of dollars flow into such gambling machines, which are illegal.
Though Indiana launched a limited crackdown in early 2005, it has served
only to drive the machines from many bars and fraternal clubs while leaving
them to thrive in places like the I-65 truck stop in Clark County. But if an
alcoholic-beverage trade group has its way, all that could change. This
month the Indiana Licensed Beverage Association, a tavern owners' group, is
preparing for what appears to be a long-shot legislative push to legalize
the slots-style gambling machines -- but only in bars and restaurants.
They're selling the approach as a way to generate $300 million in tax
revenue for the state and tighten prohibitions on gambling at such places as
truck stops and convenience stores where the activity is often available to
anyone, including youngsters.
A Courier-Journal series two years ago documented widespread illegal video
gambling in Kentucky and Indiana, where spotty law enforcement has allowed
the activity to flourish. Indiana officials estimated then that there were
up to 30,000 illegal machines statewide, pulling in $300 million to $500
million a year. A spot check by the newspaper along I-75 in Kentucky found
more than 130 machines at 19 truck stops, convenience stores and fast-food
restaurants. If Indiana eventually legalizes the machines, it would join
only six other states that permit video gambling in multiple locations
outside casinos and racetracks.

And even in those states, questions remain about whether legalization is
good policy.

In West Virginia, for example, where nearly 9,000 video-lottery terminals
generate about $361 million a year to shore up the state budget and provide
college scholarships, some lawmakers and many residents decry the state's
grab for easy tax revenues from gambling.

"No matter how much money the state makes, it's never enough. The appetite
is never satisfied," said Kelli Sobonya, a two-term Republican in the
state's House of Delegates and a gambling critic.