Slots Debate May Never Stop

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Proposed Slots License Areas

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"It just means there's a larger population of people," he said.

During the same period, the number of auto thefts was cut nearly in half.

About 15 miles from the Maryland border, a rural two-lane road opens up to a six-lane strip of chain restaurants and the newly renovated Dover Downs Hotel and Casino, with upscale shopping, restaurants and a full-service spa.

At businesses along North Dupont Highway, views of slots' arrival are mixed. To Judy Diogo, president of the Central Delaware Chamber of Commerce, slot machine gambling has been a "tremendous boost" to the economy, making Dover a destination. "Because of their success with slots, they've been very generous to the community," she said.

One mile south of the casino, Earl West Jr. said he has seen all kinds in more than 20 years at Dover Jewelry and Pawn Exchange but a "bigger slice of poorer people, and a lot are involved in slots." Slots have been good for business after an initial drop-off, West said, but he has seen too many people lose their homes and jobs. He doesn't play.

"People are chasing a dream," West said. "If it were rich people losing money, I wouldn't mind it."

Inside the casino atrium, adorned with columns and fancy tile, George and Rose Countiss have arrived from Southern Maryland with a budget of about $100 each for "a little fun" to celebrate Rose's 69th birthday. But the Countisses intend to vote against their state's slots ballot proposal.

"They claim it's going to help schools, and it might, but the poor people are the ones who support these things," said George Countiss, a retired contractor who works as a supervisor at a Sam's Club warehouse store. "I have control, and I can afford what I'm doing."

Government and academic reports on the community impact of gambling tell conflicting stories, depending on underlying assumptions and the location of the casinos studied. After interviewing law enforcement officials in 14 states, former Maryland attorney general J. Joseph Curran Jr. warned in a 1995 report: "It is simply a fiction to delude ourselves that it is possible to have casinos without more crime."

Curran's report was written before Delaware or West Virginia had any significant experience with slots. More recently, Maryland Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez went on fact-finding missions to those states and to Pennsylvania. Perez, one of the state's leading pro-slots voices, found that slots "do not appear to have instigated an increase in crime."

Moreover, Perez took issue with the assertion that slot machine gambling is a "poor man's tax," noting that officials at West Virginia's Charles Town venue reported that Montgomery County is its most lucrative Maryland market.

"They aren't busing in immigrants from Langley Park. They are targeting middle-income retirees from Leisure World in Montgomery County who have disposable income," he said.

If Maryland's slots proposal is successful next week, it would allow 15,000 machines at five locations. Most Maryland residents would live within 20 miles of one of the sites, according to researchers at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. Their report, released this month, also noted that the National Gambling Impact Study Commission found in 1999 that the presence of a casino within 50 miles doubled the number of problem and compulsive gamblers.

The UMBC report, paid for by opponents of slots, put a price tag on the social cost in Maryland: $228 million to $627 million a year. The study found that bankruptcy and divorce might rise with the increase in problem gamblers and that gambling addictions disproportionately affect African Americans and other minority groups.

The social and moral costs are what concern the coalition of Maryland religious leaders who are leading the opposition to slots. The Rev. Byron Brought, a pastor at Calvary United Methodist Church in Annapolis, is offended by the "predatory and deceptive nature" of gambling. "They prey on the poor people, people who are desperately looking for a chance to make money," he said.

Maryland's legislation acknowledges the problems associated with gambling by requiring operators to pay an annual fee per machine into a problem gambling fund that could bring in $6.4 million a year. But Perez said neither side has a monopoly on the moral high ground because without the anticipated revenue, an estimated $660 million a year, state programs would have to be cut.

"I respect the view that there are social costs," he said. "But there are social costs to a $600 million hole."