ViewPoint; Slot Machines in Our Community

Proposition be authorized slot machines at the dog track. What are the issues surrounding proposition B. What do we need to know before casting our vote. Slot machines and our community. Tonight on view point keep. Viewpoint where the community spotlight shines on island as an issue I'm viewing the Western Pacific only Public Affairs magazine. Viewings. Now most of you point down the road. Holiday and welcome to viewpoint on Election Day in November. The people of Guam will be asked to vote on Proposition B which is in Tiger with an

initiative to revitalize tourism in Guam and generate new revenues for healthcare and public education by allowing slot machine gaming at the Guam Greyhound party tonight on viewpoint. We were on a roundtable discussion on the merits of the proposal by the committee to revitalize tourism is a behind proposition B and they initially agreed to be part of our discussion. Subsequently they withdrew their participation. We regret that decision. However we also think that questions about their proposal are too important to the voters and to the future of the island not to have this discussion. Our viewpoint panel will therefore only have opponents to Proposition B who will address the proposal and the arguments presented on the website of the committee to revitalize tourism. Even though we only have one side of the issue represented in the studio our intention is to inform voters on both sides of the argument.

We want to thank our panelists for joining us this evening and we'd like to introduce them now with start with Senator Cruz. Thank you very much for having me here this evening Jacki. I'm actually here in an unofficial capacity. I am here as a concerned citizen and I have been a concerned citizen for for the last 25 years. I've always been opposed to any form of gambling on Ireland and that's the reason why I'm here this evening. Thank you Jacki. I'm Jacki Arriola Moratti. I'm a member of the known proposal group and it's a pleasure to be here this evening thank you. Good evening Jacki. My name is Chris Prizm a family physician and been lucky. Sorry I have been fortunate in being gifted and asked to. Have some smarts to be able to become a physician and I work in the community taking care of many of the ills that sick to our community. And I believe that what would those would be will be bringing will cost more in our communities and here as a citizen to try and give the

information to others so that they will be able to choose wisely on this issue. Thank you. Thank you so much. All of you for being here. Let's let's go ahead and begin. The proposal seeks to establish a gamer at the gwon greyhound track with 200 slot machines which will strictly which will be strictly regulated and overseen by the department of revenue and taxes the same way that dog track is currently supervised. It does not propose a casino. Unlike recent gambling proposals what is the difference between a slot machine room at the track and casinos. Jacki thank you Jacki. There is no difference. Seventy percent of profits at all casinos come from slot machines. When you have a slot machine in a room it's like having a casino these days casino slot machines also have Roulette games. They have poker games. So the only thing that's missing in something like this is frankly the tables in our mind there's no difference between a slot machine room and Casino. One of the same.

Anybody else would like to answer that. Well actually I think it's like if you were to say I'm in Las Vegas that I'm having something of a trade win as opposed to the. Lox or whatever the big the larger hotels are. That's the difference. That's the only difference. It's just that one is a classy place and the other one is just a back room someplace alongside a. Racetrack that has casinos and slot machines. But it's still a casino. Either way with 200 machines and the thing that I'm concerned about with the 200 machines Jacki is the fact that the way that the law is written there is no fees there's no licensing to each of these. The There's just a 10 percent across the board on what they claim is gross income. And if anybody looks at the proposal Mr. Audy is in banking. I have never seen gross income be defined as something minus the expenses. If they

say it's gross income though it actually is the net after you take out everything. And so just the way this whole thing is devised and it's written is very poorly done and the definition of gross income really needs to be addressed. And I think the other thing that needs to be addressed very very carefully is the is the taxing part of it where it says there shall be no other tax fee Levy or other charge assessed against slot machine gaming operation when you look at the definition of gaming operation that needs the entire thing that's over there. So though the whole thing is only going to have the 10 percent. There's actually nothing else that we can go after in taxes. Does that mean that they're going to. Even if they're not going to pay the g r t. But does that waive their income taxes in the couple of any of the other taxes that are to be paid by any organization. It's a very poorly written proposal and I think when you start on the first page and they have. A. Gross income and it's deceitful in its definition you have real questions about the rest of the proposal.

If I may add to that this whole notion of strict regulation and oversight by the Department of Revenue in taxation there is an existing law that governs Guan grayhound one of the indications that we saw with regard to regulation is that on an annual basis there has to be an annual report given to the governor and the people of Guam regarding the activities of Guam Greyhound facility. This doesn't happen. So any notion that this is going to be strictly overseen and regulated by the revenue and taxation is simply not there and there is absolutely nothing in the six page proposal that indicates any kind of regulation by the by revenue tax. They have to come up with it themselves. The question was very very simple. What's the difference between this type of gaming casino and you know as far as I'm concerned looks and lights this sweet mouse whistles and bows on what really creates a casino. It's the gaming that occurs in Casino. And Jack has already alluded that 70 percent of the profits in any casino is from this type of

gambling. If you look at the square footage of any casino 80 percent of this square footage is dedicated to electronic games and quite frankly when you look at people go into the casinos 75 percent of them will gamble at this type of gambling and 25 percent and all the other ones. So call it what you want but it's casino gaming and this community has never voted or chosen to not take Senos what it has voted down is casino gaming and this is what this is I'm going to move on. 10 percent of the profits from the slot machines would be earmarked for Guam health and education budget. Is this a good idea. Well the idea is always very good to be able to get money to go to Guam. I'm actually having some discomfort with regards to making sure that those policy makers use it in my way. But 10 percent is what you're alluding to is 10 percent tax and that's going to be on the what we call net however is that eventually is going to be fine. One of the things that we need to understand as a community is that in many jurisdictions there have been great promises for that. And actually if you look at

the lottery systems in the United States a lot of it is based on the fact that they're going to dedicate these funds to education. Let me give you a little bit of a word picture so you can understand why I have difficulty with that. It has never worked. What happens is that the monies are not given in addition to what our policy makers budget what they will do as they anticipate what will be coming in from that form of revenue and then under budget. By that same amount. So GP SS I don't know what the budget was but I think Senator B.J. was able to sign off on that today. That's a 180 million dollars. She says. 50 percent or I think actually for this initiative 20 percent was going to be dedicated off that 10 percent so two out of the town. Will go to education. Well what happens is policy makers will under budget by that amount and that soon that they're going to get the gambling or gaming revenues. So education never really gets any more money than what would with you would have been allocated to them. So again is it a good idea wonderful idea but so many great ideas

without any substance fail. But the point is 90 percent go to the owners. And this is clearly a special initiative that's not intended to revitalize tourism this is intended to revitalize one organization like Dr. Chris I agree that that money being earmarked to health and education is wonderful. It's a great soundbite it grabs everybody's attention but look at the flip side 90 percent going to one company the one thing I'm concerned is the 10 percent is not going to be sufficient to take care of the social ills that are created. I think at one point I heard some say is the proponents talking about they be able to make 30 million of which they would be able to give 3 million to education and health. The budget for the hospital. But even more important the budget for some Department of Mental Health is is three times that amount and the amount of money that would be needed to take care of the addiction

problems on the island the problems that would be needed to take care of public health and social services and the family disorientation throughout the community the three million would not would not cover it. And it just is a drop in the bucket. My the thing that I always say to everybody is yeah we can make a lot of money when doing certain things but just the fact that you're going to say I'm going to send my son to school and the only way I'm going to be able to afford it is to sell drugs. Does that mean that I should do that because that's the way that I can send my children to school. It's you know just because the end is a worthy cause doesn't mean that the way that you raise the money which is detrimental to the community is something that should be the way that we do the raising of funds. Senator while we're still with you proponents claim that probably would create as many as 500 new jobs. What. I'm trying to figure out how would work. I mean just just the size. I drove by the Greyhound bus to new and I drove around the parking lot trying to figure out where they would put five hundred new employees

in that in that area or even they have 200 slot machines in the inside. How many employees would you would you need to oversee oversee that. There you probably one per 50 slot machines which means only about four new employees because you don't need somebody sitting over there it's not like a blackjack table or some roulette table where you need one person for each one. You just need somebody to be paying out. So I don't see where the new jobs are going to go to. And the thing that I'm concerned about is the fact that when you have people going in and playing the slot machines that's going to drive down the small businesses on Ireland. I was on the national committee and I actually resigned my position on the commission on the one National Committee because I was really embarrassed about the fact that we were doing a lottery at the at the stores because I would go into Payless and I would see a woman go up and pay six dollars for a lottery ticket. And then as I watch her as she goes into the line and she has a $4

packet of ground beef to feed her family. And I'm trying to figure out how anybody could possibly justify doing such a thing of taking advantage of people's desire to try to somehow make make rich quick. And at the same time leaving them to suffer and I I couldn't I couldn't stay on the Jeano see after that because I just could not participate and be part of anything that was taking my food in and out of children's mouths. I think without doubt that again it's like 500 new jobs and three million dollars going to health and education. Basically what happens is that when these slot machines casino slots call them what you will are established the money that would generally be spent buying groceries going to restaurants going to movies starts getting sucked out of our community and starts getting put into this particular industry the jobs to be lost because businesses fail as a result will not result in any net new creation of jobs.

In fact they'll be a net reduction of jobs directly as a result so there will be no five hundred jobs. It sounds good. Jack Bauer still with you. Will legalizing slot machines at the dog track help to revitalize tourism across the whole industry as these backers claim we have seen nothing no plan from the proponents of proposal B that indicates that there is a plan to bring new tourists to Guam. We have not seen where they're going to come. How much they're going to spend and whether 200 slot machines will in fact extend the average stay of our visitors to come out and say that this will revitalize tourism without a plan simply makes no sense. Once again it sounds good. It's a great sound bite but there's nothing that they've provided to any of us that indicates that there was a sound plan working in conjunction with our existing industry and the government to bring additional tourist tourists to Guam. Fact is it

will revitalize something it won't revitalize tourism. And the thing is when you look at interest in Asia just I think it was two weeks ago. Trump. A invested one billion dollars in the seat when casino in Macau with the one billion that's there is I mean what we're going to be spending for 200 machines here is chump change. And the one billion dollar casino that they could go to Macau would be someplace better to go to than here. And when all the exit surveys are done other tours that have been coming to Guam with the 1.2 million of them every year the number one thing that they want is cultural events and cultural tourism and the community would be better served in trying to find a way to invest and to help people who are trying to do what the exit surveys say the number one concern of the tourist is in cultural tourism. It would be better spent to revive tourism by investing in cultural

tourism or in sports tourism. Either one has to be an attraction I think to revise to revitalize tourism and one of the difficulties I'm having with this is the proponents are saying it's not a casino. So really there is no attraction there. Yet now they're saying but this casino gaming. And we're going to be able to attract the tourists and I think what we're going to be able to track are going to be our local people who may not be well equipped to be able to handle this type of gaming. And if you really just kind of look at that type of things they're in a quandary because they want to say we want to track these tourists because we have something to try to attract and with. But they can't say it's a casino and that's really what will attract them. If you look at the Mecca's where gaming occurs. There's a place called Las Vegas that I understand supposed to be one of those. The average Japanese visitor only 30 percent of them will gamble. And the average amount that they will drop is $50. So that is not and that's the Mecca. Either we have this casino or not. It's 200 slot machines. We're not going to track any of any of them.

And I agree with that Senator. We can't attract the Chinese because visa problems even if they were free to travel. Macau will obviously be more attractive. So there's a quandary there for the proponents. Dr. Paris you know I think what we're coming to is it's the local community that's going to be affected. So gambling in many forms are already legal on Guam. We have bingo caught fighting dog racing Raffles the Schenkel Pilars and other various gambling games. SS How does proposal being fit into this picture. The way I see it you have legalized gambling on this island and because of legalized gambling you actually have a lot more illegal gambling. So will state that proposal be is proposing casino gaming in the form of slot machines. This is the most dangerous form of gaming inside of a casino. And part of that is because of the rate of the pace of play and probably the odds. And so if you really look at this if you want to classify types of gaming into danger zones this is one of the most

dangerous because the senses are going to be stimulated every six seconds with a bat. And if you really look at this if you look at the average worker minimum wage worker making 535. I know B.J. wants to raise that which is great but say they make $11000 in a year. If he uses the five dollar token which is the maximum that's used only one token now he could put five six as many as he wants and he gambles every six seconds. And 600 transactions an hour. Is $3000 an hour. He will lose possibly his entire year's salary in three hours and 45 minutes. That's how quick this happens. And many times gamblers really actually don't gamble for money they gamble because of the rush. And as a physician that's the problem I deal with whether it's a chemical addiction whether it's a behavior addiction. And I think this type of gaming is just going to create more problems even though we have other forms of gambling. I can add to that slot machine gambling is known as the crack cocaine of gambling.

It ties in exactly with what the doctor said because it Haddix people three times quicker than than other forms of gambling to legalize ice or the crack cocaine of gambling is to is to legalize more crime to vote for Prop B is to vote for more crime. Senator Cruz if I can just continue on in that context. So it's a common community problem that that gambling possibly will increase social problems and add additional strain on law enforcement social services. Is this an issue with a proposal such as a limited tightly controlled facility. It doesn't matter whether it's limited whether it's tightly controlled having gambling on island will have social consequences. I Serge's family court judge for 10 years during the period that we had the slot machines initially in the 80s and the early 90s and and the horror stories I could tell you of the disruption the disruption destruction the families during that period is what

would shock you. I mean I I saw cases where 12 year old girls were prostituting themselves so they could raise money for bread and spam to feed their brothers and sisters because they were left alone at home because their parents were both too busy in town in that area at the slot machines. The the. I know people who are in their 70s now who are from that gambling period. Took out doing that gambling period took out their retirement fund and now are 70 and are needing to work because they they don't have the protection of their retirement from all kinds of different. There are people that have lost their homes. I met a young businessman the other day who was asked by the proponents to be a supporter. He said Are you kidding me. My parents were divorced because of it. And now you want me to support this is there's no way I'm supporting the opponents because I saw firsthand the destruction that it causes in the family and whether it's tightly controlled unless you're going to have people come in and show their bank accounts which you can provide to the bank or

something you know so that you know that you have the ability and the excess money to throw. It isn't and every payday. All you have to do is drive around and you know where all these little see gambling hot places are right now. They're packed on payday night and you know they're losing their weeks or the two week pay as Dr. Harris was mentioning earlier one of the things I like to mention too is that when people say well I don't gamble so maybe this is OK. And I think they fail to understand that the problem gambler will affect 10 to 17 people in their lives and in an adverse way. It'll be something like this with the TO-MORROW guy says Hey borrow me phantom $20 so I could buy milk for my baby. I'll pay you a payday. Well you don't ever get $20 a payday because Perry took his $20 and gambled it away. And I think people have to understand that when a when a problem gambler finally gets to therapy where I get involved. In a sense I handle the medical side a lot of other specialists handle the social ills $70000 worth of debt

$130000 worth of stolen and. Theft type injury to others. It's $100000 per problem gambler if you wanted to throw some statistics out 1 percent of our population who gamble or 1 percent of our population period are problem gamblers. You put this type of gaming in and we know the national models say it doubles. So that's another thousand if we're just conservative and say a hundred thousand people one thousand one thousand thirty thousand dollars of our social ills. Thirty thousand dollars of debt or $70000 of that and a $130000 a theft. You do the math. It is not going to it's going to go way past three million dollars. That's a problem. OK. We're coming up to the closing of their show so we have one last question and if we could have perhaps all three of you answer answer it. The order is planning to use the slot machine profits to develop the track into a major tourist attraction that includes a renovated track and the grandstand. A major theme restaurant and a large performing arts venue. Should voters consider this in their

decision and as well. If you have any other last comments you'd like to add that's fine with you jacket. No it's not in the initiative. And so if it's not in the initiative I wouldn't put any money on this. And if you'd like to also you know the whole issue of revitalization is a great catch all. And I think it's very attractive using those kinds of words in terms of bringing more money to health care and education is a wonderful thing. However the fact is is that this is a special interest initiative. It's going to benefit one company the ills that will accompany the legalization of slot machines the crack cocaine of gambling on this island will do much more harm than good. Thank you sir. I've only been to the racetrack inside the facility once. There was a concert of some sort that we we were out there and I can't see any engineer any architect being able to make that into anything grand grand or grandiose except it's a dump that there's absolutely

no way being able to to upgrade it into being the Bellagio or or any kind of other hotel. It's a mirage in the middle of a morning and it should stay that not the hotel but a mirage. That's not real bad because I think the way I would answer that is if I'm going to go and see something at a performing arts venue I wouldn't want to have dog racing right next door. OK. And any last comments on the whole issue. Well I think we've alluded to it I've come actually not to tell anyone not to support profiting. I've come to tell everyone why I am against. And you've heard it with this discussion we've had. Again like I said it's not really the the lights or the looks it's not the sweet smiles it's not the whistles and the bounce but it's what goes on in there. And it's gaming that is casino gaming and you cannot deny that this community has voted casino gaming down over and over again.

And tonight I think they're even more educated that this is what it is. And they will vote now. Thank you very much. Thank you to our guest Senator Cruz Jackie Moratti and Dr. Chris Para's. We are sorry that the committee to revitalize Guam tourism eventually chose not to join our roundtable tonight. We encourage the voters of Guam to take the time and make the effort to inform themselves before Election Day not just on this issue but on all issues and candidates. Thank you for joining us this evening. Marcy. I will see you turn. On