Under rules proposed by the Ohio Lottery Commission, video slot machines would be allowed to flash and chime 24 hours a day, seven days a week at horse racetracks. The owners of the state’s seven tracks, who face stiff competition from four full-size casinos, surely will look for every advantage to lure gamblers.
Such a wide-open expansion of the Ohio Lottery deserves careful scrutiny before final approval. With both track owners and the lottery eyeing new revenue, it is up to the Joint Committee on Agency Rule Review to examine the negatives. The powerful legislative panel will send the rules back to the commission for final approval.
Track owners would get two-thirds of the revenue, with the state getting the rest, one study projecting Ohio would rake in $2 million per month per track for every 1,000 machines. Yet still unspecified is how much more the lottery commission would devote to treating problem gamblers. It now provides about $335,000 a year to the state Department of Drug and Alcohol Addiction Services, an amount a 2005 study by Cleveland State University viewed as far from adequate.
The study calculated that mitigating the damage from gambling would cost nearly $23 million annually, and that did not consider slot machines or big-city casinos. The casino amendment stated that just 2 percent of revenue, or about $12.9 million a year, go toward treating addictions.
While experts say that addiction to gambling is limited, affecting around 2 percent of the population, the effects are devastating. Consider former Ohio State quarterback Art Schlichter, who squandered $10 million, affecting 30 to 40 others. Studies also show that gambling addiction rates are nearly double for those living within 50 miles of a casino. Surely, tracks with at least 2,500 slot machines must be viewed in much the same light.
Ohio is not alone in turning to gambling to generate new revenue. But in doing so, the state risks encouraging behavior that can quickly destroy families. Rules that fail to take that into account ill serve the state as a whole.
