The New Hampshire House Ways and Means Committee last week voted 11-9 against forwarding a bill that would license a single casino with 5,000 slot machines and 150 gaming tables to the floor of the House.
The bill had included many more regulations than last year’s bill that the House rejected, which had been cited as a reason many representatives opposed that bill in May. Aside from that the two bills are very similar.
Granite State Governor Maggie Hassan strongly supports one casino as a way to raise money to pay for road infrastructure repair, education and health and human services expenditures, and maintains that state residents will cross state lines to gamble in Massachusetts if they can’t play at home.
At her state of the state message in January the Hassan had asked lawmakers to revive the debate on gaming.
State Senator Bette Laski, a member of a chamber where gambling legislation has done well in recent years, recently told a gathering in Nashua that casinos are coming to the Bay State and that moral arguments against gaming are not convincing given how much money the state makes from the sale of liquor.
“People have addiction problems,” the senator said, according to the Nashua Telegraph. “With the bills that have been out, there would at least be some money to help some of these people. Obviously, there are pros and cons, but to talk about it like it’s the evil incarnate, I, again, on a personal note, don’t buy it.”
However, an alderman for that town, Michael Soucy, disagreed with the senator. “There’s a quality of life here in New Hampshire, a real different quality of life here in New Hampshire, that I would hate to see us go down that route that Massachusetts is taking, that New Jersey is taking,” he said.
Earlier in the month Rep. Debra DeSimone predicted that if a gaming bill made it through the House the Senate would easily endorse it. “I think that will be the biggest surprise to everyone and the biggest benefit to our state,” said DeSimone, quoted by the Eagle Tribune. “If that gets through the House, it will be clear sailing the rest of the way.”
The New Hampshire House has never passed gaming legislation, although the Senate has passed such a bill several times. The House vote in May was 199-164 against the bill. Different parties control the two chambers.
There had been some hope that recommendations from the New Hampshire Gaming Regulatory Oversight Authority, which was formed last year after the House defeat, would smooth over some objections in the House. Hassan named the panel, which then met for several months to write the regulations.
