SLOT MACHINE GAMBLING: Bad News for Maryland

Slots are a bad gamble for Maryland.

They won’t produce promised revenue. They won’t save the racing industry. But they will cost us millions through gambling addiction, drug and alcohol abuse, crime and embezzlement from businesses, and broken families.

The proposed Slots won’t deliver the promised revenues.

While Annapolis politicians are making up outrageously rosy numbers, experts are calling the slots plan locations some of the worst in the country. Why are gambling lobbyists and industry insiders inflating the numbers?  They will say anything to get their foot in Maryland’s door. And when 15,000 slot machines fail, the next step will be more machines and more locations in more neighborhoods.

Slots will NOT keep gambling money in Maryland.

West Virginia’s Charles Town is the highest grossing slots location in the country, and this plan offers NO INTERCEPTOR against that location. The largest winner will be Canadian billionaire Frank Stronach. He’s cornered the only good location in the deal, and all of the profits go to him and his cronies in the DeFrancis family.

The proposed referendum will decide whether we amend the Maryland Constitution to include Slots.

Our State Constitution protects our Right to Free Speech (article 10) and our Right to Petition Grievances (article 13). To spoil our most important document would be an unprecedented and outrageous victory for gambling industry insiders and lobbyists.

Slots will bring deadly addiction to Maryland families.

These aren’t the old-fashioned slot machines from the fifties. The new breed of slot machines are controlled by a central computer with programming designed with one objective: to take your money. Research shows that addiction levels jump sharply when gambling is nearby. The industry’s own numbers show that one to two percent of gamblers will have an addiction problem. One in five will attempt suicide.

Slots will kill small businesses and derail the state economy.

Almost every dollar that goes into a slot machine would have been spent on another more productive activity. Gambling draws spending away from legitimate businesses like restaurants, shops, and other attractions. Employers are not interested in locating near gambling facilities. No matter how shiny and new, businesses perceive gambling as a sleazy industry that promotes addiction and embezzlement. Our strong Maryland economy can only be harmed by this kind of activity.

If passed the referendum would put Maryland’s largest slots barn only SIX MILES from the headquarters of the National Security Agency, our nation’s foremost intelligence agency.

To put 4,750 massively addicting slot machines so close to our nation’s most sensitive intelligence site would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous. Addicted gamblers have sold our nation’s secrets before. Do we need to learn this lesson over and over?

Slots isn’t going to be like James Bond at the casino.

It’s a hard-nosed business that targets the poor, the working class, and the elderly. The General Assembly used the recent Special Session to increase the massively regressive sales tax by 20%. And now they want to hurt vulnerable Marylanders once more with slots. Lottery tickets are mostly sold in poorer neighborhoods. Slots target the same people with a far more addictive product.

Slots won’t save horse racing.

By installing slots, Maryland tracks would get a taxpayer handout to transform themselves into casinos, moving away from Maryland’s racing heritage. Horse racing can’t compete with more popular sports, and won’t survive on subsidies from slot machine gambling. Slots will end up burying horse racing in our state, not saving it.