May 21, 2009 9:00 pm US/Eastern
Mass. Senate Nixes Slots At Tracks, OKs Powerball
BOSTON (AP) ―
The Massachusetts Senate waded into the gambling debate Thursday, embracing a plan to join the multistate lottery game Powerball but rejecting proposals to add slot machines at racetracks and delay a ban on greyhound racing.
State Treasurer Timothy Cahill, under pressure to boost sagging lottery revenues, pushed for the Powerball plan saying it could bring the state an extra $25-$40 million a year.
Massachusetts already offers drawings on one multistate lottery game, Mega Millions two nights a week. Cahill said he'd like to give state residents a chance to buy Powerball tickets on two other nights a week.
"The big drawings can make or break us in a fiscal year," Cahill said.
Massachusetts would receive about half of the money from Powerball tickets sold in the state.
The state set a record for lottery sales in the 2008 budget year when there were five drawings for prizes worth more than $200 million, Cahill said. Sales have dropped by about 5 percent in the current fiscal year, which has seen only two of the jackpot prizes -- a drop compounded by a failing economy.
The House hasn't approved the Powerball plan, which will be a subject of negotiation as Senate and House leaders work out a final legislative version of the budget to send to Gov. Deval Patrick.
Even if lawmakers approve the measure and Patrick signs off on it, the state would only be allowed into the game if a majority of the more than 30 states that already offer Powerball agree to extend it to Massachusetts.
All five other New England states offer Powerball.
The Senate approved the Powerball proposal on a voice vote and after virtually no debate before beginning a long debate about expanded gambling in Massachusetts.
Senators rejected by a 31-6 vote a proposal that would have allowed the state's struggling dog and horse tracks to add 2,500 slot machines each -- something the tracks have been requesting for years.
Supporters, including Republican lawmakers and senators with racetracks in their districts, said the slots would raise desperately needed tax money for the state while helping preserve jobs at a time of rising unemployment.
They also said Massachusetts residents already spend money gambling at slot machines and casinos -- they just travel to neighboring states to do it.
Sen. Marc Pacheco, D-Taunton, whose district includes the Raynham Park greyhound track, said allowing slot machines at tracks could raise $250 million to $350 million each year while preserving some of the state's major employers.
"This amendment before us today is a jobs amendment," Pacheco said. "If this amendment is adopted, the facilities would be up and running by January."
But critics called slot machines addictive and said the state would be balancing its budget by preying on the most vulnerable. They also called the revenue estimates overblown.
"This has become the most predatory and the most exploitive industry since the tobacco industry," said Sen. Susan Tucker, D-Andover. "They are interested in the person on that bus who will stay and dump their entire Social Security check down that slot machine."
Senators also rejected by a 29-8 vote an amendment to delay a greyhound racing ban by two years until January 2012.
Voters last year approved a ballot question to end greyhound racing in the state in January 2010.
Those pushing to delay the ban said it will give the state's two dog tracks the ability to keep operating until state officials can sort out the debate over casinos and expanded gambling.
Residents in Raynham this week overwhelmingly approved a home rule petition asking lawmakers to postpone the ban for two years.
Despite Thursday's defeats, the odds of Massachusetts embracing some form of casino gaming or adding slot machines to existing racetracks have grown significantly since the departure earlier this year of former House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, D-Boston, the main opponent of casinos and slot machines.
Senate President Therese Murray, House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Gov. Deval Patrick all backed some kind of expanded gambling.
Murray has said the Senate will likely debate gambling in the fall.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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