Most in state poll back slot machines

A majority of Massachusetts voters wants to legalize slot machines at the state's racetracks, a Boston Globe poll suggests.

With the House expected to take up the issue later this month, the apparent support for slots among voters is sure to add fuel to a fierce debate over whether Massachusetts should expand gambling as well as the potential costs and benefits of doing so.

Fifty-three percent of voters surveyed said they were in favor of legalizing slot machines, and 41 percent said they were opposed, while 6 percent said they were neutral. Highly educated voters were more likely to say they opposed slot machines, and those with high school diplomas or some college education were more inclined to favor them.

In another finding, 54 percent of voters surveyed said they would be more likely to vote for a gubernatorial candidate who supported allowing gays and lesbians to adopt children, a divisive issue that has roiled the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston's social services agency, Catholic Charities. The poll was taken before the agency announced Friday it would halt its adoption program because state law prohibited it from discriminating against same-sex couples.

Democrats, women, and voters with no religious preference were more likely to say they would prefer a candidate who supported adoptions by gays, while Republicans, those with a high school education, older voters, and blacks were more likely to say they would support a candidate who opposed them.

Among Catholics, who made up about half the respondents in the poll, 46 percent said they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who supported such adoptions, compared with 26 percent who said they would probably choose a candidate who was against them.

The poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, was taken of 503 randomly selected likely voters March 3 to 9. It has a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.

One argument proponents of slot machines make is that scores of Massachusetts residents, faced with nowhere to gamble in their home state, are instead spending their money every week at casinos and racinos in Connecticut and Rhode Island. That money, supporters say, should be spent here so Massachusetts gets the tax revenue.

The Globe poll indicates that the out-of-state travel is real: Nearly a third of all respondents said they had traveled outside Massachusetts in the past year specifically to visit a casino or gaming facility.

That is why poll respondent Joe Lavin, 56, of Springfield, believes the state ought to allow slot machines at racetracks, though he does not believe expanded gambling is good for Massachusetts.

''They're all running down to Connecticut anyway, so I figure we might as well keep the money," said Lavin, who works at a residential facility for the mentally handicapped. ''I think it's an awful idea, but it's all over the place."

Another respondent, Nancy Bernhard, a 43-year-old writer from Somerville, said she has mixed feelings about slots. She said she would welcome additional funding for the schools if slot machines generated it, but she also thinks they are bad for people and would attract crime.

''I'm kind of torn," Bernhard said.

A push for slots by the racetracks has gained momentum in recent months after the state Senate passed a measure in the fall that would allow the state's four tracks -- Wonderland Greyhound Park in Revere, Suffolk Downs in East Boston, Raynham Park in Raynham, and Plainridge Racecourse in Plainville -- to add up to 2,000 slot machines each. The House is expected to take up a slot machine bill in the next couple weeks, though it's not yet evident what it will be.

Supporters of legalizing slot machines, including Mayor Thomas M. Menino of Boston and other prominent mayors and politicians around the state, contend that slot machine gambling would generate about $350 million annually for the state, as well as $100 million in initial start-up license fees. They also say it would save the dying racing industry and thus preserve thousands of jobs.

Opponents assert that the potential benefits of allowing racinos are severely overstated and that the added costs to the state will offset any purported additional revenue.

Even if a slots bill won enough support in the House to pass, that is unlikely to be enough given that Governor Mitt Romney is expected to veto it. It would take two-thirds of lawmakers in both the House and Senate to override his veto, and it is unclear if proponents have quite that much backing in the House.

Although the debate about slot machines generates a lot of buzz on Beacon Hill and in the racetrack grandstands, those surveyed said it will have little bearing on whom they vote for governor. Sixty-one percent of respondents said the issue was not that important, or not important at all.

The poll respondents most likely to favor legalizing slot machines were those who had visited a casino recently. Voters under age 35, Republicans, and residents of Central Massachusetts -- who live closest to the two big Connecticut casinos, Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods -- were the most likely to have visited a casino.

The poll also explored opinions on adoptions by gays, an issue that flared last month after the Globe reported that the state's four Catholic bishops were planning to ask the state for permission to exclude same-sex couples as adoptive parents in adoptions by Catholic Charities, the church's social service agency. The Vatican holds that adoptions by gay couples are ''gravely immoral."

But Massachusetts has anti-discrimination laws that prevent the Church from singling out gay and lesbian parents. Faced with having to allow same-sex adoptions or doing none at all, Catholic Charities announced Friday it would end its adoption program.

Most respondents of the poll indicated they disagree with the Catholic Church on this point. Karen Mulhern, a 49-year-old stay-at-home mother and part-time substitute teacher from Worcester, said she knows gay couples who have adopted children. ''Wonderful parents," she said.

''I'm a Catholic," Mulhern said, ''but I don't follow along that line that they shouldn't adopt."

Mulhern said she was somewhat offended by the decision by Catholic Charities to end its adoption service.

Romney said Friday that he would file a bill that would allow religious institutions to provide an adoption service without violating their beliefs, calling the current state law ''deeply disturbing and a threat to religious freedom."

But even poll respondents who voted for Romney in 2002 were more likely to say they would support a gubernatorial candidate who supported gay adoptions than one who didn't.

Forty percent of Romney voters surveyed indicated support for same-sex adoptions, compared with 24 percent of Romney voters who indicated opposition.

Scott Helman can be reached at shelman@globe.com.