It seems that Washington lawmakers are befuddled over what to do about gambling. Voters don’t appear to want existing laws liberalized, but as consumers they are flooding the casinos. Legislative committees have begun holding hearings as they seek an answer to the dilemma – one that took root nearly 40 years ago in Spokane County.

In August 1968 prosecuting attorney George A. Kain had had it with hypocrisy. Illegal gambling was taking place with flagrant openness in his jurisdiction, but no more. He ordered bingo and pinball operations to cease.

The Washington state Constitution clearly prohibited games of chance, he noted, adding: “If the public wants to gamble, they should contact the legislators and the press for modifications of the law.”

Unfortunately for Spokane County bingo fanatics, authorities in most other jurisdictions were happy to maintain the tolerance policy, making a political movement slow to gather. In time, though, Kain’s law-and-order principle led to a constitutional amendment, approved by voters in 1972, to legalize gambling.

And so, bingo came back. And pretty soon there were punch cards and pull-tabs. And card rooms. And casino nights.

For a time, even before tribal casinos were on the scene, the West Side community of Ocean Shores became a small-scale Reno, operating gambling attractions all year long as it hosted casino nights for a rotation of charitable organizations across the state.

Washingtonians were acquiring a full-blown taste for gambling.

In 1980, an FBI sting netted the state’s two highest ranking legislators – Senate Majority Leader Gordon Walgren and House Speaker John Bagnariol, both Democrats – on bribery, mail fraud and racketeering charges stemming from an alleged scheme to expand gambling in Washington for a share of the profits.

Campaigning for governor that same year, Republican John Spellman promised he’d veto any legislation that expanded gambling in Washington state. Two years later he signed the lottery into law.

About that time the tribal casino phenomenon was gaining momentum, yielding a proliferation of establishments on and off reservations. They were so successful that non-tribal businesses began to demand the same gaming opportunities that tribes could negotiate, under federal law, with governors.

Anyone who has paid attention to this history knows that the march has been incremental, step by step from a $45 million-a-year industry in the punch card days of the mid-1970s to a $1.7 billion-a-year dynamo today. And it’s still growing.

As the legislative hearings explore the issue, they owe careful consideration to some ideas King County Prosecuting Attorney Norm Maleng has put on the table.

Don’t let the tribes’ success be used as leverage for expansion of off-reservation gaming. Don’t go after a state share of the tribes’ profits, a sure way to undermine regulatory independence. And conduct negotiations with the tribes directly through elected officials – the governor and Legislature – rather than appointed commissions.

Washington state has come a long way since the relative innocence of illicit bingo. Big-time gambling needs to be reined in, which will demand the kind of backbone Maleng has recommended.