New Hampshire Rep. Dan McGuire is pushing a bill that he calls the “largest gambling bill” every proposed in the Granite State.
McGuire has been attempting to get the votes to repeal Ways & Means Committee recommendation to kill the bill, HB630 that would allow bars and restaurants in the state to have as many as few video lottery machines. Any business with a liquor license would be able to host the machines.
The machines would be restricted from being in areas that families and children frequent. The businesses hosting the machines would collect a third of the revenue and the state would collect 35 percent and 5 percent would go to property tax reduction.
There are an estimated 1,800 liquor licenses in the state. The New Hampshire Lottery Commission estimates the state would collect in excess of $200 million annually.
McGuire told the Concord Monitor that this would be preferable to inviting a large casino operator into the state. However, that is just the reason that many on the Ways & Means Committee opposed it, according to Committee Vice Chairman Pat Abrami. They prefer a “real casino,” he said. “It just doesn’t seem like New Hampshire to us,” said Abrami.
Abrami said it was possible that the full House might overturn the committee’s recommendation when it comes up for a vote this week.
The lack of any action in the legislature so far on any gaming bills appears to spell gloom for the idea of riving Rockingham Park, which last hosted a race in 2009.
This led the Blood-Horse to speculate last week that the park appears, “headed toward the sales block.” The track’s president and general manager, Ed Callahan, told the publication: “The board of directors is determining what its next move will be,” adding, “There will be a meeting at the beginning of February to decide all of that. It will likely be that the property will go on the market in the next month or two.”
In the past the racetrack and gaming in general has had a staunch champion in Senator Lou D’Allesandro who has year after year proposed bills that would allow gaming. The racetrack has a deal with Millennium Gaming to develop a racino if the right legislation passes.
Callahan said, “With the start of the new legislative session, Sen. D’Allesandro filed a new bill to allow one facility (a destination casino) in the state that would be sited at Rockingham Park specifically and exclusively. We do not anticipate that bill will go very far.”
