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Gambling in Texas - DO YOU BELIEVE ME NOW?

By Alice Linahan

Education & Training with Voices Empower

May 09, 2011 06:23 AM

Great article and information by my good friend Donna Garner.

Remember when I was vilified across this state for raising the red flag against Joe Straus becoming the Speaker of the House for a second term? As the legislative session has progressed, I believe most conservatives are beginning to see Straus for what he really is.

When I wrote yesterday’s article (5.8.11) entitled“Stop Gambling Expansion in Texas” posted I utilized Texas Legislature Online (http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/) which is thought to be the best place to track Texas legislation.

When I checked to see the progress of Rep. Beverly Woolley’s bill (HJR 111) under “Bill Stages,” HJR 111 had not even gotten out of the House committee yet; therefore, I did not think it had a chance of passing because today is the last day for House committees to report.

Late last night I heard from an inside source that Rep. Hamilton’s full-blown gambling bill (HJR 147 — video slot machines, casinos, gambling, and race tracks) had been dropped for lack of support; and instead, Rep. Beverly Woolley’s HJR 111 (video slot machines/video lottery terminals at race tracks and Indian reservations) is moving forward.

Why was the bill movement of Woolley’s HJR 111 not posted on the Texas Legislature Online? In fact, it still is not posted on the website (5.9.11, 9:12 A. M.); and this is Monday morning — two full days after the end of the legislative session on Friday. Is it a coincidence that the bill that will financially benefit the Speaker of the House the most just happens not to be visible online to the public?

HJR 111 is the bill that opens the floodgates. To use a Texas expression, it is the “big enchilada” and, of course, it is the bill that Speaker Joe Straus wanted from the very beginning — video lottery terminals/VLT’s, video lottery games, games of chance played on terminals that are electronically simulated at racetracks and Indian reservations.

Electronic gambling (e.g., slot machines) is one of the most dangerous forms of gambling because it preys on pathological gamblers.

Video Slot Machines are known as the ‘crack cocaine’ of gambling because of their addictive nature…The addiction cycle is shorter – about 1 year to become addicted.

Failing race tracks would become major slot machine casinos, also called ‘Racinos,’ overnight.

Texas Observer Andrew Wheat wrote on 4.8.10, “Texas House Speaker Joe Straus III’s family could earn tens of millions of dollars if lawmakers and voters agree to let racetracks install slot machines (VLT’s).”

Slot Machine Joe Has Got To Go

Joe Straus has had long-standing business interests in gambling. He and/or his family own Retama Park in Selma (near San Antonio), Laredo Downs, Valle de los Tesoros Park in McAllen, and Austin Jockey Club.

Retama has been losing money for several seasons, and it is not hard to imagine that Straus desperately wants to keep his family out of bankruptcy. It is also common knowledge that land has already been bought in Austin along FM 1625 at Texas Highway 45 and Old Lockhart Road to set up a racetrack called Longhorn Downs; Retama Entertainment Group (Straus’ family) is to manage it.

Speaker Straus chose the House chairs and committees; he also chose the Pro Tempore. Is it any coincidence that the person he chose to be the “vice-president” of the House is the person who is helping to carry the racetrack gambling bills – Rep. Beverly Woolley?

Rep. Beverly Woolley also co-authored HB 2111 which lays out the details of the way VLT’s would be implemented.

I feel sure there are many Texans who think there is nothing wrong with expanding gambling, particularly when our state is facing a severe budget crisis. Think again!

EMPTY RHETORIC ABOUT GAMBLING

When gambling bills are debated, the supporters always make sure that the bills contain all sorts of “comforting” statements about how controlled and legal such gambling operations would be and how huge numbers of jobs would be created for Texans. (Similar “comforting” gambling bills have been passed in many other states, and the graft and corruption have always followed.)

One of these “comforting” statements is being bandied around right now by the gambling supporters: “The expansion of gambling in Texas would create 77,500 permanent jobs in Texas.” First of all, how is this possible when there are only 178,700 jobs in the gambling industry nationwide?

What kind of gambling jobs would these be? The vast majority of employees would make less than $20,000 per year, possibly even lower than that because jobs in Texas usually pay less than the national average.

Furthermore, there is no incentive for gambling workers to move up; and there is plenty of data that suggests that people with low incomes wager more in total dollar amounts than people who make above $50,000 in income. In other words, the poorly educated gambling workers with their meager salaries of less than $20,000 per year would tend to gamble their paychecks away.

(Data taken from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: Occupational Outlook Handbook – 2010 – 2011

Texans Against Gambling – “Race Tracks and Video Slot Machines – VLT’s – 2008”

Most recently it [the racing industry] began lobbying for legalization of Video Slot Machines (VLTs) at the tracks, arguing again that slots at the tracks would provide significant tax revenue to the state. They do not emphasize that failing race tracks would become major slot machine casinos, also called ‘Racinos,’ overnight.

Video Slot Machines are known as the ‘crack cocaine’ of gambling because of their addictive nature…The addiction cycle is shorter – about 1 year to become addicted… In fact, Big Gambling pays psychologists to assist game designers to make these machines more addictive, juicing up hypnotic sounds and sights and apparent near-misses to make users believe that skill is somehow involved in winning. In 2002, the Rhode Island Gambling Treatment Program identified video slots as ‘the most addictive form of gambling in history.’

Texas Public Policy Foundation — Research Report — March 2005 — “VLTs — What Are the Odds of Texas Winning?” by Chris Patterson

Excerpts from this report:

There are well-documented costs that are associated with gambling:

• Regulatory activities generally consume about 10 percent of gambling revenues;

• Criminal justice costs increase 8 to 13 percent;

• State lottery revenue decreases approximately 10 percent;

• Revenues from taxes on non-gambling goods and services decline as discretionary spending is redirected to gambling; and

• Jobs are lost in non-gambling businesses.

• Sales declined 10 to 20 percent among local businesses in Natchez, Mississippi after gambling was introduced;

• 50 percent of the city’s retail businesses and restaurants closed in Atlantic City within 10 years of the legalization of gambling;

• Violent crime increases up to 13 percent in counties with casinos that are least 4 years old;

• The State of Delaware reports underwriting between $1 to 1.5 million annually on social services related to gambling;

• The State of Wisconsin and local communities spend over $63 million annually on social and criminal justice costs associated with gambling;

• The American Insurance Institute identifies $1.3 billion in annual costs related to gambling and insurance fraud; and

• Bankruptcy rates in U.S. counties with casinos are 18 percent higher than those without casinos.

CONCLUSION

No matter what glowing promises the gambling supporters make about the benefits of gambling revenue, the problems that come along with the expansion of gambling always follow: devastated families, addictive behavior, increased divorces and suicides, drug/alcohol abuse, more organized crime, massive start-up costs, a big state bureaucracy, and a loss of income to community businesses.

ACTION STEPS

Please tell your Texas Legislators that we do not want an expansion of gambling in Texas of any kind whatsoever – no race track derbies, no VLT’s, no racinos, no casinos.

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Russell Lewis

Realty Austin, Austin Texas Real Estate - Austin, TX

Broker,CLHMS,GRI

I agree with you but am not surprised that the Republican who dominate the legislature have no problem supporting and probably passing the bill. It's all about the money...received for Lobbyists for anything they want. A shame really...

May 09, 2011 06:34 AM

Anonymous

Russell Hendrix

I disagree. If anything, Straus's hands off approach to this issue (because he's a boy scout and doesn't even want the bare appearance of driving an agenda) has been detrimental. I'm a pro-gambling Republican, Alice. I vote in primaries and I will vote for any candidate that supports giving us the freedom to decide this issue ourselves, not be dictated to my a bunch of people who are RINOs.

I'm mad at Straus because only now is this coming up. EVERY single week, we lose tens of millions of dollars to Louisiana and Oklahoma, neither of which have dried up and blown away as a result of legal gambling.

Seriously, let voters decide what to do with THEIR money. Quit telling them what to do!

May 09, 2011 06:53 AM

Mike Saunders

Retired - Athens, GA

This post is why I am not a conservative or a republican, but rather a libertarian. We should not be legislating behaviour. If someone wants to gamble, they should be able to. Yes, some people fall "victim" to an addiction, but we should not be legislating everybody elses behaviour to "protect" the few. Oh, yeah, those that are addicted will still find ways to gamble.

May 09, 2011 08:23 AM

Anonymous

Donna

As the gentleman said previously, Texas loses millions or more to surrounding states! We have an obvious budget crisis here! Long time teachers are going to lose their jobs not to mention the impact it will have on education for our children as a whole, if the crisis is not remedied. Face it people are going to gamble, so what would benefit the state of Texas? Bring it home to Texas! Where else are you going to find funds for needed programs and such? Bet you can't answer that! Oops, sorry about the pun!

As far as Speaker Straus having a conflict, that is ludicrous! How many legislators are involved in state businesses that get voted on EVERY session! Speaker Straus is doing what he is suppose to do in a situation like this, by refraining from voting! You are narrow minded!

Let the people decide, give them a chance to vote on whether the majority wants.

Please tell your Texas Legislators that we want the right to vote on the expansion of gambling in Texas of any kind whatsoever - race track derbies, VLT's, racinos, casinos. Funny how our ancestors fought for the right to vote back as far as the 1800's. Now people are trying to stop the right of choice by voting! Give it to us and see what happens!

May 18, 2011 08:26 AM

Alice Linahan

Voices Empower - Argyle, TX

DIVIDE AND CONQUER: PAYDAY LOANS, GAMBLING, AND LOSING

By Westin Hicks 18 MAY 2011

Conservatives have been content to be lovable losers in American politics for a long time. In Texas this is beginning to change, but we still need to shake off some of our old loser habits.

One of our bad habits is allowing the left to divide and conquer us, one issue at a time. Payday loan legislation and gambling legislation provide two good examples of how moderates and liberals use this tactic against conservatives.

Let’s preface with a word of recent conservative remembrance: Ronald Reagan made it his project to bring the two major segments of conservatism, fiscal and social, together. Besides a deep belief it was the right thing to do, Reagan, the visionary, believed it the politically expedient thing to do, too. He was right. He united the two groups and won landslide victories conservatives today only dream about. Uniting social conservatives with fiscal conservatives was his strategy.

These days, very few social conservatives aren’t also fiscal conservatives. Fiscal matters may not be what motivate them to participate in the political process; remember, most people don’t even vote. However, once engaged, voters motivated by social issues invariably add heft to the fiscal conservative cause.

Similarly, most people motivated by fiscal matters are also social conservatives. When engaged by fiscal matters, they can be counted on to provide pro-life support and the like.

While there are certainly some true hyphenated conservatives (either fiscal cons or social cons but NOT both), they are a distinct minority, at least among voters. Politicians and political leaders are still commonly too timid to fully represent voters (and often themselves), dreaming the impossible dream of impressing liberals, but that’s a discussion for another time. Even hyphenated conservatives need to respond to the ways we’re all being played off one another by the left.

It works like this: legislation from the middle and left is often given a varnish of appeal to one of the two emphases of conservatism. It can be either; they don’t really care. Using a façade of social conservatism or fiscal conservatism, they keep half the movement from opposing them. If they can do that, they have a chance to pass liberal legislation in Texas. Note: they don’t need support from ANY of the conservative movement, they just need one major faction to NOT oppose them. When accomplished, it’s a game changer.

Consider the payday loan bill first. Payday lending is considered predatory lending by social conservatives, who generally oppose it. More libertarian conservatives are opposed to regulation on most economic activity, and therefore support payday lending in theory. They may not like it, but they are philosophically obligated to support it’s right to exist. Both groups have a right to their opinion, and those opinions aren’t our concern here.

The payday loan bill has been peddled by it’s moderate sponsor Vicki Truitt (R) as a restriction on predatory lending. In doing so, she’s called off the social conservative dogs.

In truth, hers is a very shallow sales pitch to social conservatives, because this bill actually makes payday lending worse. People already caught on the payday loan merry-go-round can’t just get off. Increased administrative costs imposed by increased regulation will inevitably be passed on to consumers, which means a larger portion of people’s paycheck will go to the lender thanks to Vicki Truitt and her sham social conservative-friendly bill. Additionally, the increased difficulty of complying with increased regulation will encourage the little guys in the industry to get out.

We must learn to habitually call their bluff. For example, the only way to end this kind of predatory lending is to make it illegal. Winnowing payday loan providers will do nothing to get rid of the practice, it will only chase out of the game providers too small to pay for lobbyists. Social conservatives need to be tough enough not to accept gestures of service from politicians, because, let’s face it, their gestures are often false.

Let’s see: boxing out small businesses, making payday lending more expensive, and further marketplace regulation. Which segment of conservatism was this supposed to please?

We can do the same thing with gambling legislation, only, the shoe is on the other conservative foot. With gambling, libertarian conservatives are placated on the basis we shouldn’t limit “victimless” economic activity or legislate morality.

This is another exceedingly shallow sales pitch. In fact, gambling in Texas is an oligarchy protected from competition by constitutional barriers of entry. In truth, it’s no gimme whether social conservatives or fiscal conservatives should be more enraged with the gutter crony capitalism that is Texas gambling.

The point is this: the real goal of moderate and liberal legislation is to consolidate power for the big business/big government partnership many today are calling “the ruling class”. As such, it’s rare their legislation actually accomplishes the moral causes they sell it on, be they fiscal or social.

It’s time we wised up and quit being lazy opponents. Texas gambling would make every dead libertarian hero roll in his or her grave; we must quit parroting misrepresentative talking points liberals apply to it. We don’t do our heroes honor by letting liberals lead us around using as a choke chain libertarian-sounding sound bytes.

Social conservatives can’t let themselves be similarly schnookered with pious-sounding social goals. We need to make sure the stated goals of legislation are also the likely outcome. We need to stop being easy first dates.

If legislation doesn’t pass muster, we should, as a unified conservative movement, oppose the legislation. When we help scratch each other’s itch, we’ll get the favor returned.

There’s another wrinkle. Liberals are composed of two factions, too. Let’s use their class-obsessed vocabulary. There are the rich white bosses of liberalism, mostly concerned with consolidating money, power, and PC social status, and there is the liberal-voting underclass they make a show of representing to build their fiefdoms. While the elites know payday lending and gambling legislation is about consolidating power, the true believers and the underclasses don’t. They often oppose practices like gambling and payday lending, because they know the underclasses suffer. This is where we divide and conquerthem.

We need to remember the wisdom of President Reagan in uniting the two major emphases of modern conservatism: fiscal conservatives and social conservatives. In doing so, we’ll construct a legislative juggernaut in Texas that will marginalize the outsized influence of liberals and moderates in Texas politics. The lovable loser days are ending.

May 18, 2011 08:58 AM