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NY Senate Approves Gambling Expansion
The state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Wednesday night to expand gambling in New York, with state leaders saying new revenue sources are crucial because of the World Trade Center attacks. The measure now goes to the state Assembly.
The proposal would expand the number of Indian-run casinos in the state from two to as many as eight, introduce video lottery terminals at many horse racing tracks and let New Yorkers buy tickets to the big-money, multistate Powerball lottery.
Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno said the package could be worth $1 billion annually to the state within the next three to four years. "We're desperate for cash," Bruno said. "Our revenues have fallen off a cliff."
Though there was some vocal complaints about the new gambling ventures, the Republican-controlled Senate approved the bill 52-8. Many who said they were opposed to gambling nevertheless voted for the measure because legislative leaders tied it to the allocation of some $500 million in state aid for such popular programs as education and community services.
A persistent critic of state-sponsored gambling, Republican Sen. Frank Padavan, said the new gambling would only multiply the estimated 1.2 million New Yorkers who are already problem gamblers. "I don't think any of us are sent here to hurt people and all this gambling is going to do just that," Padavan said Wednesday night.
Gov. George Pataki has said the state could lose up to $9 billion in revenue over the next 18 months because of the September 11 attacks. The state currently has an annual budget of about $83 billion.
Bruno and the Legislature's other majority leader, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, both said they do not like gambling. But both said they and Pataki were being forced into the unprecedented expansion of gambling by the economic and fiscal reverberations of the trade center disaster.
"If it wasn't for the catastrophe of September 11, we wouldn't be contemplating what we are doing," Bruno said. Casinos could not be established in New York City under the legislation. Silver said his fellow Democrats in the Assembly majority, most of whom come from New York City, were opposed to having casinos in the city.
The Senate also quickly adopted two resolutions to begin the process of amending the state constitution to legalize non-Indian casinos. For that to happen, two consecutively elected state Legislatures would have to approve the proposed amendments and voters would then have to pass them in a statewide referendum.
SOURCE: Associated Press.
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