Officials measure Maine casino vote
Seen hurting Mass. proposals
Once, Maine's reputation as a political barometer gave birth to the saying, "As Maine goes, so goes the nation." But the state's schizophrenic vote this week on commercial gambling offers a mixed message to Massachusetts lawmakers debating casinos and slot machines in the Bay State.
"I don't think anyone was make or break on Maine," said state Senator Michael W. Morrissey, a Quincy Democrat who is co-chairman of the Government Regulations Committee, which considers gambling issues. "I don't think it affects us one way or the other. We still have the pressures of [gambling in] New York and Connecticut and Rhode Island, and we still have the pressures of no revenues."
Maine's voters, who turned out in record numbers for an off-year election, delivered a resounding defeat Tuesday for a proposal by two Indian tribes to build a $650 million casino in the southern Maine town of Sanford. But those same voters approved, by a narrow 53 percent to 47 percent, a plan to allow slot machines at the Bangor harness track.
Christian Potholm, a Bowdoin College government professor, said exit polls indicated that Mainers were worried about a mega-casino in the populous southern part of the state, but that the presence of slot machines at an existing racetrack in Bangor did not carry the same baggage of potential crime, gambling addiction, and hordes of visitors.
"The gargantuan size of the one in Sanford was just more threatening," Potholm said.
Although Bay State lawmakers downplayed the possible impact of the Maine casino vote, one key racing-industry official said the effect could be harmful to the effort to bring gambling to Massachusetts. "I do think we were hurt by all the publicity that was given to the fact that the casino was voted down," said Robert M. O'Malley, chief operating officer at Suffolk Downs racetrack in East Boston. "When word gets out about the possibility of slots at harness tracks, it has the potential to be helpful, particularly because it might cause New Hampshire to do something."
That's a gambling-industry phenomenon called the "ladder effect," said state Representative Daniel E. Bosley, the House chairman of the Government Regulations Committee. The theory is that once casinos or slot machines take hold in one state, neighboring states feel compelled to create competing sites to protect and increase tax revenue.
A casino vote in Maine would have created more pressure for casino and slot-machine gambling in Massachusetts, said Bosley, a North Adams Democrat. But now, even if the Senate passes its gambling bill, the House does not appear ready to change its longtime opposition to the concept, Bosley said.
"The pro-casino group in Maine was called Think About It, and I think people thought about it" and rejected the plan, Bosley said.
However, the "racino" question to allow slot machines at Bangor Raceway and Scarborough Downs troubles some observers of the racing industry. Carey M. Theil, president of GREY2K USA, a group that opposes dog racing, said the Maine vote "is a sign that voters do not have an appetite for expanded gambling. So overall, this hurts the chances of a casino gambling bill in Massachusetts, but it strengthens the tracks' hands to some degree."
Maine Governor John Baldacci has expressed misgivings about the slot machine proposal, and the Legislature has some authority to alter the ballot initiative before slot machines are installed. Although the question included Scarborough Downs in its language, the town's government is opposed to slots. The machines have been approved by Bangor voters.
In Massachusetts, Morrissey said gambling revenue needs serious consideration regardless of the Maine votes. "We're still under the same situation, maybe just not as much," Morrissey said. "This is still purely a case of revenue, of money. If you're looking for revenue, if not this, what else?"
Raphael Lewis of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
