A Scenario For Expanding Gambling
What do tribal gambling and Initiative 651 have to do with Seattle Mariners baseball?
As of today, very little. But by the end of the current legislative session, perhaps quite a bit.
The initiative would force the state to sign gambling “compacts” with treaty Indian tribes - compacts that would be dictated by the tribes themselves. The pacts would allow the tribes to offer wide-open gambling - including slot machines and video poker - with minimal state oversight.
The come-on by the three sponsoring tribes is cash: 10 percent of the net profits from slot machines and video poker would be distributed each year to every state voter. That’s about $100 a year per voter.
Today, the chances of the Legislature legalizing off-reservation slot machines are minuscule. That opposition to this final expansion of gambling, however, could well crumble if voters approve Initiative 651. What reason would legislators have to keep slot machines out of non-Indian taverns and cocktail lounges if they are available on every reservation?
Very little, especially if they have the chance to bring money into the state treasury at the expense of tribal casinos. A 10 percent tax on video poker alone would provide an estimated $150 million a year to the state. All current games offered by the state lottery produce just $125 million.
This is where the Seattle Mariners arrive on the scene. The American League baseball team’s officials have been in Olympia all session looking for a way to build a new ballpark. The longstruggling team - on behalf of its long-suffering fans - claims it needs a new ballpark to make a profit and compete for the high-priced talent needed to build a winner.
Their dream field - a grass, baseball-only park with a retractable roof - would cost about $260 million. If the public chipped in $200 million of the total, King County would need about $27 million a year to pay the principal and interest on the loan.
While the team has been talking publicly about more-traditional funding sources - a 0.1 percent sales tax hike, a new ticket tax or an assessment on rental cars - King County officials have been more creative. County Executive Gary Locke has been whispering that the solution may be video poker.
Gambling profits could be used, not only for the ballpark, but also for other projects. The county needs about $6.5 million a year to pay off the $60 million it borrowed to repair the ceiling and roof of the Kingdome. Seattle interests are pushing for a way to pay off a proposed $100 million expansion of the downtown convention center. The state school construction fund is always short of cash.
And how does Locke intend to break through the hard-line opposition to video poker and slots? By pointing to Initiative 651 and portraying it as a done deal. The state had better get on board or all the profits are going to flow to the tribes, this argument claims.
There also is a halfway measure. Senate Bill 5602 - written by the state’s tavern owners - would legalize slot machines and video poker offreservation only if such games are made legal onreservation. Off-reservation video poker not only would produce money for the state, but it also would be closely regulated by the state.The bill envisioned the tribes winning slots and video poker in the courts, it could be amended to take effect if tribal slot machines are legalized at the ballot box.
Such a bill would have several effects. First, it would give skittish legislators a chance to vote for a bill that doesn’t directly expand gambling. Second, it actually could be portrayed as an antigambling vote because it makes passage of the initiative less likely.
How’s that? Stay with me here - this gets complicated. What is the tribes’ most potent sales ploy for Initiative 651? The annual payoff to voters. But the initiative contains something called the “Exclusivity to Indian Country” clause. It says that if the state ever legalizes slot machines or video poker off-reservation, the annual payola to voters would be halted.
Passage of the initiative would trigger SB5602, which would, in turn, activate the cancellation clause. If the bill becomes law, the tribes could hardly suggest that voters would get a yearly check from tribal slot machines.
Still, if Initiative 651 should be passed, SB5602 would require the state Gambling Commission to draft rules immediately to regulate non-Indian slot machines and video poker. The 1996 Legislature then would have to decide how to tax the games and distribute the profits.
Unlikely? Tribal gambling already has decimated state gambling policy. Initiative 651 would be the final blow to hopes of keeping fullblown casinos out of the state.
Will legislators take the chance? When they realize they have few other ways of paying for special projects - projects that are supported by the state’s largest and most powerful economic interests - they may.
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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Peter Callaghan McClatchy News Service