Slot machine gambling is back as a State House issue, at least in the mind of Senate President Thomas Mike Miller.
But House Speaker Michael Busch and Gov.-elect Martin O¹Malley are not exactly of the same mind.
In two previews of next week’s General Assembly session, Miller has revived the debate about slot machines as a way to save Maryland’s horse-racing industry and raise revenues.
He decried the hypocrisy of elected officials who approve of some form of gambling but not others.
He noted Baltimore City committee officials recently sent a bill to the full council that allows taverns and restaurant owners to increase the number of video poker machines, while other Baltimore officials oppose video lottery terminals – the technical name for computerized slot machines – at Pimlico Race Track.
“That’s pure bull … ,” Miller told 150 economic development officials and business advocates on Thursday.
At the Maryland Association of Counties meeting in Cambridge on Friday, Miller said, with slots in neighboring West Virginia, Delaware and now Pennsylvania, “That’s $700 million a year we lose to our sister states.”
Slot machines at racetracks have helped increase the purse size that owners receive when their horses win. If you’re a horse owner and you don¹t move to Delaware and Pennsylvania tracks, “you’re a fool,” Miller said. “It’s not the final answer” to the need to aid the racetracks and boost state coffers, but “it’s a partial answer.”
Busch has been a chief opponent of slot gambling, but his response to Miller was mild. “If you do gaming, you have to do it in an appropriate way,” Busch said.
Noting that Pennsylvania put slot parlors near Philadelphia to compete with Atlantic City casinos, the speaker said, “You would not select the current spots where many of the racetracks are” to put slot machines.
“If you determine to go in that direction, there are a lot of things that you have to take into consideration,” Busch said, plus “you have to come up with consistent stable revenue sources, as well.”
During the campaign, O’Malley said he would favor slots at racetracks to help the industry, but his new legislative chief, Joe Bryce, said, “One of the mistakes that has been made is referring to slots in a vacuum. We have broader issues in this state. It is unproductive to engage in an isolated discussion of things that need to be discussed in a broader context.”
“That was a great answer,” Busch said, generating laughs from the county officials at Bryce’s perceived non-answer.
