Senator Lou D’Allesandro, who has been introducing bills to build casinos in New Hampshire for 16 years, only to have them crash and burn in the House, has reintroduced his bill in this session.
He touts the bill, which would authorize two casinos, as a way to increase revenues without a tax increase. There would be a larger casino with 3,500 slots and 160 tables and a smaller one with 1,500 slots and 80 tables.
Besides requiring a license, casinos would also require the permission of the hosting community, which would split tax revenues with the county. Some would also go to cut property taxes statewide.
At the bill’s first hearing before the Senate Ways and Means Committee the senator said that the state needs both the jobs and the money the casinos will generate. It would produce instant revenue in the form of $120 million in licensing fees, which would be renewable once a decade. It would create a gaming commission to oversee the casinos.
D’Allesandro’s bill has bipartisan support as well as the backing of Governor Maggie Hassan, who supported one casino last year, and even included $80 million in revenues from it in her biannual budget. She didn’t do that this year.
The governor didn’t say whether she would oppose a bill that has two, rather than one, casinos. She did make her preference known, however at a meeting with legislators: “I continue to believe that one high-end casino would make sense for our state,” said the governor. “But I am also a realist, and I think that the Legislature has shown some skepticism to it, so I didn’t include it in this budget.”
She addressed the issue of not including speculative revenues in the current $11.5 billion budget proposal. “The Legislature has shown some skepticism to it so I didn’t include it in this budget, but I certainly would be responsive to a constructive dialogue about that,” she said.
Scott Spradling, a spokesman for Millennium Gaming, which hopes to build a casino in the state someday, told the Concord Monitor, “No news was good news. Had she put it in the budget, the entire issue might have stalled before it had a chance to get started.”
Republicans who might support the bill, but didn’t want to see supporting a budget proposed by Hassan, a Democrat, are now seen as more likely to support it.
If D’Allesandro’s bill is a recurring feature each year for the last dozen years, so is the opposition that it generates from Casino Free New Hampshire and Granite State Coalition Against Expanded Gambling, which like to compare casino gaming to “crack cocaine.”
D’Allesandro has always found easily sailing for his bill in the Senate than in the House. Last year supporters came close to passing it there. Everyone agrees that it will be close this year. “I think we can expect to be in the same ballpark of closeness” in this session, Rep. Joe Sweeney told the Union-Leader last week.
Sweeney and D’Allesandro have learned from previous failures and have tried to include items that address concerns that came up last year. One of these was authorizing two casinos, which addressed those who worried about a one-casino monopoly. Another new clause gives the state a larger share of the profits.
According to D’Allesandro, “We can show that this piece of legislation benefits every person in the state of New Hampshire. Every person.”
Steve Duprey of Casino Free NH, told the Union-Leader, “I think the passage of time has actually strengthened the arguments against a casino.”
Duprey argues that undecided people will be moved by the fact that neighboring Massachusetts plans much larger casinos than any envisioned for the Granite State. “That would negate any chance that a New Hampshire casino will become anything but a local gambling parlor,” he said.
Besides casinos, Granite State lawmakers are considering a bill to bring keno to the state. Hassan did decide to include $26 million in revenue from that source in her budget. Last year the House approved such a bill, which then died in the Senate.
The keno bill’s author is Rep. Lynne Ober. It would allow keno in bars and eateries, but not convenience stores. This would expand the state lottery to 250 new venues and the state would collect an estimated $26 million annually. They would operate 12 hours a day. Operations would pay $500 in annual licensing fees. Like casino gaming, keno is seen as a way to keep money from traveling south to Massachusetts, which has offered the games for more than two decades.
The legislature may decide to pick and choose between keno and a casino since some lawmakers feel that both would be too much.
