Casino Amendment is Full of
Hidden Tricks
Sept. 20, 2008
By Jerry Kopel
Are you ready to read this headline in March of
2009? "Black Hawk votes 51 to 49 to raise casino bets to $100". That's
not 51 percent. That's 51 voters.
The clerk and recorder staff in Gilpin County told me, in mid-September,
there were 100 active voters in Black Hawk. "Active" means they voted in
the last general election or had since then registered as voters.
What if the Black Hawk vote totaled 200? Still not comfortable? Then you
should vote "no" on Amendment 50 in November, 2008.
Each casino town acts separately as to raising casino limits under
Amendment 50. Central City has 514 residents and 405 active voters.
Cripple Creek has 1,065 residents and 514 active voters. Black Hawk has
232 residents and 100 active voters.
Information on population came from the Internet. Gilpin and Teller
County clerk staff provided the number of active voters: 1,019. The 2007
population estimate for Colorado is 4,861,515.
Your right to make gaming decisions will be diverted by Amendment 50 to
casino executives in the three gambling towns. The executives can
pressure casino employees to vote "the casino way" and bypass
experienced state employees working for the state gaming commission.
They can do this in two of the three towns because Black Hawk and
Central City are now, unfortunately, company towns. The casino
employees, their families, and other persons whose business is directly
or indirectly affected by the casinos are the voters. Those whose annual
incomes are benefited by the casinos will be the majority voters
permitted to make decisions under Amendment 50 in those two towns.
Colorado presently puts casino regulation under a gaming commission
responsible to the governor and to the statewide voters. Amendment 50
changes this. How?
The small number of potential voters who have addresses within the three
casino towns can "revise limits on gaming that apply to licensees in
their city's gaming district to EXTEND":
(1) hours of limited gaming operations
(2) approved games to include roulette or
craps, or both, or
(3) single bets up to one hundred dollars.
In the Oxford Illustrated and the Concise
English Dictionaries "extend" means to enlarge, to make larger in scope,
to expand.
Example: A town votes to extend the hours of operation to 24 hours. Then
the residents find it too disturbing. Under Amendment 50, that town's
voters cannot reduce the number of hours. Neither can the gaming
commission nor the legislature, without putting the issue on a future
statewide ballot. Of course, a casino can ignore the higher limit and
stay open fewer hours.
The word "revise" in referring to subsection (7) (a) remains limited to
describing "extend".
The language could have stated "to extend up to the limit provided or to
reduce the limit, but not below the limit allowed prior to passage of
Amendment 50." But it did not.
The same "revise" and "extend" language applies to raising gaming taxes
beyond the present commission-set 20 percent limit.
Any increase in gaming taxes above the 20 percent figure has to be
determined by all the voters in Colorado, not just the voters in the
three towns, and not just the gaming commission.
To go above a 20 percent tax levied on the major casinos, the gaming
commission has to vote to increase taxes under language already in
statutes regarding reasons for an increase. But the commission vote
means nothing until it is placed on a ballot to be voted on statewide
some year in November.
The commission can't put it on the ballot. The legislature can. An
initiative signed by the required number of voters can. Whatever
incentive there is to provide a tax increase will be opposed by a huge
campaign fund set up by casinos to kill the attempt. On a practical
basis, casinos spending $3 million once to keep $10 million more in
profit annually makes good business sense..
So Amendment 50 will be a major crack in the system.
Casino proponents wrote the constitution's original casino language, not
the legislature. It passed in 1990 by 574,620 to 428,096.
It deliberately placed power in the hands of a gaming commission to
assuage opponents and make credible claims this was going to be a "mom
and pop" operation: A few slot machines in the front or back of stores
selling rocks, t-shirts, or groceries.
Amendment 50 was also written by the casino proponents, not by the
legislature. Under Amendment 50, increases in gaming bets, hours, or
types of gaming, are taken from the gaming commission and indirectly
given to the casinos. Indian reservation casinos will also get the same
increases. And tax hikes are stifled.
There is no organized funded opposition to Amendment 50. Based on an
advertising budget for Amendment 50 of over $6.6 million, the measure
will likely pass.
However, some major papers may urge a "no" vote and with the number of
ballot issues, this might be a year when voters actually read and follow
editorial opinions. But that is a "wish", not a "certainty".
(Jerry Kopel served 22 years in the Colorado House.)
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