Paterson seeks more gambling

Budget crisis sparks expansion plans

By FRITZ MAYER

ALBANY, NY — It seems likely that New Yorkers will have expanded opportunities to spend money on games of chance in 2009. That’s because Governor David Paterson and other officials in Albany are looking at expanded gambling to help cut the looming $15 billion shortfall projected for the next fiscal year’s budget, which begins on April 1, 2009.

In his proposed budget, released on December 16, Paterson called for the expansion of the Lottery’s Quick Draw game, on which a winner is drawn every three minutes or so while patrons view results on a video screen. Quick Draw is now available in more than 3,200 establishments, but is limited to operating between 10:00 a.m. and midnight. Paterson wants the game to go on 24 hours a day. Also, his plan calls for allowing the game to be operated in more establishments, and he would lower the age limit to play from 21 to 18.

According to budget officials, those changes would ultimately result in as much as $59 million per year in additional revenues.

That’s just one of several proposed changes designed to bring more revenue to the state coffers. Paterson would also expand the hours that racinos, such as the one at Mighty M Gaming in Monticello, would be permitted to operate. Such operations are now required to close at 2:00 a.m. Paterson’s proposal would allow them to operate 24 hours a day.

The proposed changes have sparked concern among gambling addiction experts who say that increased gambling opportunities will lead to increased numbers of problem gamblers. James Maney, executive director of the New York Council on Problem Gambling, said the limits on gambling, such as the restricted number of hours per day for games like Quick Draw, were put in place to protect New Yorkers. To get rid of them, he said, “would be like getting rid of guardrails on highways because we don’t need them anymore.”

But the governor’s office believes the proposed changes will be helpful to the state. “We believe that there is room for responsible growth in the gaming industry to help the state manage its fiscal difficulties,” said Matt Anderson, a state budget spokesman.

Other, more dramatic changes to gambling in the state are also in the works.

State senator John Bonacic is backing legislation that would allow more games to be offered at Mighty M and other racinos. Games such as electronic blackjack, roulette and others would likely draw more customers to the racinos and add millions in tax revenue.

But the most ambitious plan for the state, and Sullivan County, is the pursuit of an amendment to New York’s constitution that would allow for up to three full-fledged casinos in the Catskills.

Lawmaker Gary Pretlow, head of the assembly’s racing and wagering committee, is pushing that amendment. He’s been quoted as saying three gambling resorts here could generate up to $1 billion a year in tax revenue.

However, getting an amendment to the state’s constitution passed is no easy task. Two consecutive state legislatures must vote in favor of the amendment; then the question must go before the voters in a statewide referendum. The earliest that vote could come would be 2011.

Still, the plan has the support of Bonacic, assemblywoman Aileen Gunther and developer Louis Capelli, who is currently developing a new hotel and racino on the grounds of the old Concord Hotel.

This push comes after plans for Indian casinos in the county were ended in January 2008 when U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne declined to allow the off-reservation casinos to go forward.