KGOU Election Series; Tribal Gaming

Each day this week, the KGOU News Department is presenting a report on one of the initiatives on the November 2nd ballot. Today, we examine State Question 712, which would allow for increased gaming at race tracks and tribal casinos, as well as government oversight of casinos. Dean Shurff, with the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, says that the money is especially needed for the state's horse racing industry, which brings in close to $1 billion a year and employs some 50,000 people in Oklahoma. One of the real major reasons that we got involved in this was Remington Park here in Oklahoma City. This chamber helped locate Remington Park. We want to see that continue to prosper out there. This will allow that to do that, because it will place some machines in Remington Park's facilities that are presently in use at the casinos. That will be a big boom, we think, to allow them to compete more effectively with the casinos. We're very concerned about Remington. If this does not happen,

Remington Park is very well go dark. But Ray Sanders, spokesman for the Baptist General Convention, says the potential economic benefits of 712 are not worth the social cost. What it comes down to is we basically feel like, as people of faith, that gambling hurts people. There are studies that indicate that suicide, crime, divorce, bankruptcy, all increase. Give you a case in point. Up in the eastern part of our state, there's a newly remodeled casino. Within the first week of that casino being remodeled, we have a church in that area whose benevolence calls more than doubled. What I mean by that is that there's people calling asking for assistance from the church. We don't have any money for milk. We don't have any money for food. We don't have any money for electric bill or gas bill. Those type of calls doubled. The first week that that casino reopened. Thunderbird Casinos' General Manager Gary Green responds that those concerns won't be satisfied by a no vote on 712. Gambling, he says, is here to stay.

Here's the deal. Here's the bottom line of 712, all nonsense aside. Gaming is not going anywhere. We're making a ton of money. This is the one shot for the citizens of Oklahoma to share some of the money with Indian tribes. If it doesn't pass, guess what? My machines aren't going away. I'm building a new casino out on Interstate 40. It's going to have 2500 machines, whether 712 passes or not. This is the chance for Oklahoma voters, Oklahoma citizens, to share in the wealth. Green's referring to the estimated $71 million that 712 would generate to fund state education. This blows my mind about Oklahoma. We are number 50. In education this state, we are the worst in the entire country. And this is our chance to move up on the scale and become part of the 21st century, become part of the United States. Still, critics like State Representative Forest Clunch have their doubts about how much education will actually benefit. We have never gotten the money that proponents said we would for paramutual, for bingo, for liquor by the drink, or any of these

things that we're going to help education, it just simply doesn't happen. So let's be generous and say that they get half of what they say we're going to get, which would be about 35 and a half million dollars. If you figure with 624,000 students in common ed alone, you couldn't buy a book for each child in Oklahoma for the amount of money that would be the proceeds of that. You couldn't buy much even if they got the full 71 million, which they won't do. A statewide survey just released shows that 712 faces the most opposition of any of the state questions. Though it currently holds a slight majority, a poll consultant says its fate might still be up in the air. I'm KGOU NewsDirector Scott Gourian.