Council, Trade Group Not Keen on Keno

Mayor Marion Barry's plan to introduce keno, a televised numbers game, in the District was dealt two unexpected blows yesterday when no D.C. Council member came forward to back it and the trade group representing city restaurants, where the games could be played, came out against it.

Barry had moved what he called "revenue producing" legislation to the council at the request of D.C. lottery officials because the city's games have made $15 million less this year than they had at the same time last year.

After a council hearing yesterday on the proposal, Chairman David A. Clarke (D) said wagering that keno would be allowed in the District is "not a safe bet."

Keno, which displays a different set of winning numbers every five minutes, has been a controversial addition to legal state gambling in the last few years. The game, despite a chorus of critics, is legal in Maryland. This year, Virginia legislators rejected plans to start the game there.

Kenneth J. Brewer, chairman of the D.C. Lottery and Charitable Games Control Board, said at yesterday's hearing that D.C. lottery games are "under attack" from competing lottery games in the suburbs. "This bill is critical to the revenue challenge the [lottery board] faces."

Barry wanted the council to pass emergency legislation legalizing keno only for restaurants and taverns, so some of the city's more vulnerable residents wouldn't be tempted into compulsive gambling. Brewer said the city could generate $12 million in revenue from keno.

But the restaurants said they weren't interested.

"These new faster-paced, interactive forms of gambling are two more incremental steps on the path toward the eventual legalization of all forms of gambling" in the region, William D. Lecos, president of the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington, told the council. "It is this slippery slope that troubles our industry."

Dotti Wade, deputy executive director of the lottery board, said she couldn't believe what she was hearing. "This is clearly a double standard. They didn't come out against keno in Maryland. Why doesn't the District get the same opportunity?"

The Greater Washington Board of Trade also was scheduled to testify at the hearing, but the business group's staff director, Ted Trabue, said board officials decided not to appear because of "concerns" they have about the legislation.

Despite accusations that the game leads to compulsive gambling, Pearl Murphy, head of the District's African American Business Association, said keno is "worth the gamble" for the small-business owner. "We can no longer afford to lose millions of dollars flowing across the District lines."

Although supporters of the bill said revenue that would give more funding to D.C. schools and other worthy causes would be lost if the bill doesn't pass, several D.C. Council members who did not even attend yesterday's meeting said they did not agree.

Lottery officials wanted to install 100 monitors for keno across the District, and Leonard Manning, president of Lottery Technologies Inc., which has the contract to operate the 500 lottery machines in the District, said he is ready to handle keno.

Clarke said yesterday that the measure basically is dead because none of his colleagues plans to put the bill on the agenda. Clarke said that while Barry probably would like to, "the mayor can't control our agenda."

"They have to go a long ways to convince me keno is something that we should do," Clarke said.