Patrick keeps open mind about gambling

Governor Deval Patrick left the door open yesterday to expanding gambling in Massachusetts, saying that he must soon make a decision on the hot-button issue.

During the primary campaign, Patrick opposed legalizing slot machines, but shortly after his election he said he would keep an open mind. When asked yesterday whether he would support legalizing slot machines, Patrick said he has struggled with the subject.

"I want to hear the arguments on both sides, and I do appreciate that there's a revenue source there that, in the view of many, we are leaving on the table when we can scarcely afford to do so," he said during a call - in program on WBUR-FM.

The new governor made his statements in response to a caller's question during a one-hour appearance on the radio station. He fielded calls from an overwhelmingly sympathetic audience; several callers said they had met Patrick at campaign events, and others urged him to find solutions for issues he raised during the campaign, including high property taxes and the legacy of criminal records haunting job searches.

But when assistant news director Bob Oakes pressed Patrick on air, suggesting that he sounded less supportive of slots than he had earlier, the governor resisted.

"Stop reading the tea leaves and the entrails and all that," he said. ". . . I am about where I was in the campaign. What I recognize is that this is a revenue source at a time when we need new revenue sources, particularly for cities and towns."

Patrick also said that though he worries about the social costs of gambling, "one argument that's been made to me is that we deal with those social costs anyway with those people who go to Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun and elsewhere for gambling."

STEPHANIE EBBERT