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Gambling Expansion Bills Set off Tribal Groups and Gambling Supporters to a Rally

Posted on May 2nd, 2011

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At least 1,500 tribal leaders, members and supporters gathered on Tuesday at the grounds of Minnesota State Capitol to protest on bills for gambling expansion. Demonstrators withstood the rain and cold weather to push their views to stop gambling expansion in the state. The group shared one voice of “Don’t Gamble with My Job” to show their resistance to the gambling bill.

Conversely, bar and restaurant owners are supporting the gambling bill. “The focus on this is helping communities all across the state,” said Dan O’Gara, a St. Paul bar owner and president of a coalition of bar owners that exposed a bill to offer electronic bingo, electronic pull-tabs and video slot machines.

The bill proposes to allow the two racing tracks in the state to add video slot machines. By doing so, the racetracks would be converted to race track casinos or racinos, by which according to legislators and gambling bill supporters will generate a significant amount of money that will help raise tax revenues for the state. Furthermore, the bill also proposes to allow bars and restaurants to offer electronic bingo, electronic pull-tabs and video slot machines.

Tribal groups are opposed to gambling expansion for fear that their existing casino operations would be adversely affected, which could also cause the loss of jobs of their employees, “What we would see would be simply a massive transfer of jobs and economic activity away from communities around casinos,” said Curt Kalk, Secretary/Treasurer of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, which owns two central Minnesota casinos. Kalk estimated that Mille Lacs Band could lose up to 40 percent of its business if racinos will be allowed in Running Aces horse-racing track in Columbus. To counter the tribal groups, racino sponsors and bar/restaurant owners argue that gambling expansion would generate considerably large sums money for the state in the form of tax revenues. The state is facing a projected $5 million budget deficit in the upcoming two-year state budget and lawmakers are scrambling in order to plug the holes in the state’s dwindling budget.

O’Gara’s coalition, Profit Minnesota, emphasized that by allowing more gambling options to operating bars and restaurants, the state would attract more customers, thereby generating profit, increasing the employment rate and economic activities for the respective areas around the establishments. O’gara and his coalition further stressed that charities that benefit from bar and restaurant games would obtain a $230 million additional revenue per year, resulting to a $630 million increase in the state’s tax revenue. Owners said that business declined after the statewide smoking ban in 2007, and stricter legal limits on blood-alcohol levels that qualify as drunken driving. Limiting gambling expansions would be tantamount to killing their businesses. Howard Zimmer, owner of Howie’s Sports Bar and Grill in St. Cloud said that in the last few years he lowered down cost by trimming his payroll from 30 to 17 employees. Linda Dahl, owner of Herbie’s Bar in Carlos, near Alexandria, said she’s gone from 20 employees to 6 in the past five years.

On the other side, employees of the tribal casinos and residents of nearby communities asserted that tribal casinos have been helping them through the years, not just by providing temporary jobs but a permanent source of livelihood. Supporters reiterate that if the bill will be passed, it would greatly affect the community’s economic status as the market for casinos will be shared to racinos and bar/ restaurant owners. In the United States, gambling expansion has been one of the most common answers to dwindling state budgets and employment rates. Several states are strapped for cash and see expanding gambling as the answer to their problem.

The gambling expansion bill was proposed by two Republican lawmakers, Representative Bob Gunther and Senator David Senjem. They said that adding up to 400 slot machines to the two racetracks in the state will bring in approximately $125million revenues per year. Aside from the Native American tribes in the state which have been instrumental in the failure of expanded gambling propositions in the past several years, the bill also meets opposition from anti-gambling groups.