Crazy Game of Poker

Gaming has been in the news a lot as of late. From a tribe's efforts to bring a Casino to Glendale to the Legislature's recent thoughts about expanding gaming outside the reservations into other parts of the state.

Ah....*sigh*.... Arizona gaming. Always a hot topic in our political community, it would seem. The latest from the legislature is a dream of Arizona opening it's own casino-type facilities generating revenue directly for the state. They seem to be of the mind, if it's working out so well economically for the Indian community, why don't we do the same thing? After all, expanded gaming would be better than raising taxes, right?

Well, this is where my mind went into a "good idea, bad idea" kind of mode. The theory itself sure sounds like a positive.

Good idea - why not open up our own casino? We could generate lots of money for the local economy, keeping our own profits, and we could probably bring in some big name hotels and restaurants which would also bring more shopping. Why not?

Here's why not:

Bad idea - the existing Indian casinos actually already pay a percentage of their profits to the state. The Indian community has their own resources to build hotels and meeting centers while negotiating the builds on their land, not infringing on state land that could be developed into other projects. Also, and this is a biggie, you can smoke in an Indian casino. Now I understand that to all of the non-smokers, this may not be a big deal, but trust me, if you're talking to the majority of the gambling population out there, the ability to smoke at one's table while playing and not having to get up, leave your seat and go outside is a deal breaker.

Now, some of you may be asking, "Well, we could keep the state-wide smoking ban and just allow smoking in the casinos we want to build." Sorry folks, but we already blew that chance a couple of years ago when the majority of voters passed Prop 201 - banning smoking in most public places including bars, racetracks, and off-track betting sites.

While the idea of our own state-wide money maker is certainly appealing. I believe we are better leaving things the way they are in this situation. In the event that Arizona opened up its own facilities, the Indian casinos would then have no limitations on the number of gambling machines, game tables and other attractions they could have. We would start small, they would just get bigger, we wouldn't make a lot of money, they would make even more and we would lose out on our current arrangement of having anything from them coming back to the state.

In short, it's a nice idea when you don't think of the other consequences, but we should look at other options and leave this one alone. Expanded gaming is a slippery slope that may have many unintended consequences. The West Valley doesn't need to become East Las Vegas.