Denver Post readers doubtless noticed Sunday’s front-page story on tentative plans by the International Speedway Corporation (ISC) to buy land for a NASCAR track near either Commerce City or Aurora.
That story detailed the controversy that has surrounded earlier track proposals and sketched how ISC hopes to overcome public opposition this time.
What Post readers may not know is that the state’s casinos, ever on the alert to head off competition, are vigorously pushing a bill (Senate Bill 47) in the legislature claiming that it is needed to prevent owners of any new NASCAR track from installing video lottery terminals.
This astounding pretext for passing what amounts to a casino protection act is, if not utterly baseless, surely wildly premature.
Anyone who has ever been to a NASCAR racetrack knows the principal reason for being there is to watch the race. NASCAR is a spectator sport, not an excuse for gambling. Horse and dog tracks, in contrast, increasingly are being designed throughout the country to handle both parimutuel betting and video terminals or slot machines. The operating theory is that people will, between races, be able to amuse themselves at a lottery terminal. Revenue from such activity has saved more than one racetrack from financial difficulty.
There has been absolutely no mention in any of the accounts involving a local NASCAR track of a desire to install video lottery terminals. Indeed, in Delaware, where there is a very liberal policy on video lottery terminals, they are available in three parimutuel horse tracks, leaving the auto racing industry unaffected.
So what are the state’s casinos and their willing supporters at the state legislature really up to? The simple answer is they want to protect the status quo. SB 47 would do three important things, all of them beneficial to the casinos:
Define video lottery terminals as a slot machine and transfer regulatory authority over such machines to the gaming commission.
Prevent the placement of any such machines anywhere in the state without the approval of a majority of the state’s voters.
Require a vote of the people before there could be any limitation on the definitions of “limited gaming” or “slot machines” as they affect the casinos.
In other words, there could be no effective expansion of gambling outside of the casinos without a statewide election, nor could there be any limitation on the casinos without that same statewide vote.
This is arrogance on a breathtaking scale.
It is certainly true that in 2002 the owners of the state’s racetracks sponsored a ballot measure to allow video terminals to be placed at those tracks. That measure was defeated. Any new proposal (and none has been made) would have to win legislative support. That is the way the government is supposed to work.
What SB 47 would do instead is create an unnecessary and extraordinary barrier to the consideration of any future proposals either to expand gambling or to reduce it.
A requirement for a statewide vote to change an existing policy is a terrible precedent. Each legislature should be free to address problems as they arrive. The state hardly needs new requirements for statewide votes beyond those already provided for in the state constitution.
The Senate bill’s sponsors have tried to argue that they are merely representing the interests of the people of Colorado. That argument is unconvincing because of the contents of the bill itself. The only direct beneficiaries of this bill are the casinos.
The irony is that casinos are not under any actual competitive threat. This bill is therefore both unnecessary and premature. Any proposal to expand video terminals would have to be dealt with on its merits, as would any limitation on the casinos themselves.
The legislature surely has more important things to do than protect already pampered casinos from threats that are more imagined than real.
Al Knight of Fairplay (alknight@mindspring.com) is a former member of The Post’s editorial-page staff. His column appears on Wednesdays.
