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State Issues Archive

Mass. Slots Bill Rejected

After hours of contentious debate, the Massachusetts House dealt a devastating blow to the state’s racing industry on Wednesday evening, voting 100-55 to kill a bill allowing the installation of 2,000 slot machines at each of the state’s four racetracks.
“The Massachusetts House of Representatives is killing the industry,” said representative David Flynn. “We’re strangling the tracks.”
The debate on the bill, which was passed by the Senate last fall, lasted for nearly six hours, as several legislators on both sides of the issue addressed the chamber, including representative Dan Bosley, a longtime expanded gaming opponent, and representative Kathi-Anne Reinstein, whose district includes Suffolk Downs and Wonderland dog track. Bosley opened the debate by lambasting the claims that slots would either save jobs or bring in substantial revenue to the state, and said that if that the bill, “doesn’t bring back our money from Connecticut, if it doesn’t save the jobs it is purporting to save, we shouldn’t do it,” while Reinstein held up photos of Wonderland workers who could find themselves unemployed without slots. “This legislature cannot afford to throw away thousands of jobs and millions of dollars,” she said. “If you vote [against the bill], you are voting against local aid, you are voting against working class families.”
Before House speaker Sal DiMasi came out against the bill last Friday, slots supporters estimated that they had enough votes to pass the bill, although not enough to override a veto from governor Mitt Romney. Flynn, whose district includes the Raynham dog track, blamed DiMasi’s “arm-twisting” for the loss of support.
After the slots bill was rejected, the legislature voted 141-13 to renew the state’s simulcasting law through the end of the year. Three of the state’s racetracks, including Suffolk Downs, have been closed since last Saturday, when simulcasting legislation expired. Suffolk plans to reopen Friday afternoon for simulcasting.
More: Lowell Sun racing correspondent Paul Daley finds fault with the legislators and the track owners for the bill’s defeat. “Believe me, there’s enough blame to be shared by both sides.”

Posted in State Issues on April 5, 2006

Simulcasting Expires

Because state lawmakers couldn’t agree on how long to extend the Massachusetts simulcasting law and track owners couldn’t agree on the number of races each was allowed to show, the legislature adjourned Friday without renewing the simulcasting law, which means simulcasting expired in the state at midnight Friday. Up to 80 employees may be laid off from Suffolk Downs, which will be closed at least through Monday, and Massachusetts racing fans won’t be able to bet on Saturday’s Florida Derby at either Suffolk or Plainridge.

Slots and simulcasting are closely linked in the state right now, and some slots supporters think that the simulcasting shutdown will put pressure on House members to vote yes when the slots bill comes up for debate on Wednesday. Revere representative Kathi-Anne Reinstein sees just such a political silver lining in the situation:

”It’s going to bring more people to the State House to show people that they need to be employed,” Reinstein said. ”There’s no other way to do that than to have them out of work.

”I never hoped it would come to this, but, now that it has, I want everyone at the State House,” she continued.

Suffolk spokesman Chip Tuttle said the Florida Derby is usually a big day, with more than $1 million wagered, and expressed concern for workers:

”There are lots of employees who live paycheck to paycheck, and the idea that they’re going to be out of work for four or five or six days, with no certainty of when they come back to work, is disturbing,” he said. ”They’re very disappointed.”

When House speaker Sal DiMasi called Massachusetts racing a “dying industry” he was right. Look at the the revenue numbers for 2002-2004: Every source of handle is in decline. And when union representative Louis Ciarlone asserts that the industry isn’t dying, “it’s an industry that’s being killed,” he’s right too. Until the simulcasting bill is renewed by the legislature, significant dollars will be lost by tracks that can ill afford to lose any money. But there’s plenty of blame to go around. As this latest snafu illustrates so well, the state’s racing industry is doomed as much by the track owners as it is by the lawmakers.

Posted in State Issues on March 31, 2006

Mass. Slots Watch

With April 5 set as the date for the Massachusetts House to debate a slots bill passed by the Senate last fall, both sides are advocating their positions with increasing vigor. The New England HBPA and the track employees’ union took out a quarter-page ad on the Boston Globe editorial page this morning (click the image to view the ad in full) that iterates the argument that gambling money leaving the Commonwealth now could be recaptured, while House speaker Sal DiMasi has officially come out as a slots opponent. The Boston Herald reports that the speaker’s “top lieutenants” are pressuring individual lawmakers to vote no on the bill: “The fix is in. It’s just like the old days,” said one Beacon Hill insider. “The word has gone out. He doesn’t want it.”
Speaking to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce today, DiMasis said, “I look at what has been going on in the racing industry, and it seems to be a dying industry,” and predicted that the slots bill would be defeated in the House. “I don’t think the support’s there that people think there is.”
That DiMasi has broken the silence he’s maintained on the slots issue for the last 18 months with such strong statements this week has deflated slots supporters who thought there was a strong chance for the bill to pass this year:

Supporters estimate that 90 out of 160 legislators in the House may vote yes on the bill, which falls short of the 106 that’s needed to override governor Mitt Romney’s expected veto. But it’s likely overriding a veto won’t be a concern after April 5. If the influential speaker of the House predicts that a bill won’t pass, “you can pretty much well … bet on it not passing.”
More: Slots legislation archive

Posted in State Issues on March 29, 2006

Mass. Slots Watch

More than 100 racetrack employees, horse owners, and local politicians rallied in front of the Massachusetts State House on Monday in support of a bill passed by the Senate last fall that allows up to 2,000 slot machines to be installed at each of the state’s four racetracks and which has languished in the House since. Legislators are meeting today to set a date “to formally debate” the bill, which was to have been voted on in March according to an agreement made last December. It’s now expected that the legislature will take action on April 5, a delay that’s angered some slots supporters.
More slots links: Suffolk Downs is now maintaining a news page with links to relevant articles from newspapers across the area.

Posted in State Issues on March 22, 2006