Sherri votes...
and so should you!
November 2004:
This measure would authorize licensed gambling establishments (charities, restaurants, taverns, bowling alleys, horse racing facilities, and card rooms) to operate electronic scratch ticket machines of the same type, and in the same total number, as authorized in state-tribal gaming compacts. Each licensee would keep 65% of the net win. Of the remaining amount, the state would cover administrative expenses, use 1% to address problem gambling, and use the remainder to reduce the state property tax.
I recommend a NO vote on I-892.
Doubling the number of electronic slot machines in the state isn’t a bad idea just because professional initiative promoter Tim Eyman is proposing. Eyman is an anti-tax zealot looking to use revenues from gambling to reduce property taxes in Washington. I’m automatically suspicious of any initiative proposed by Eyman, but this idea is bad enough on its own merits.
State-sponsored gambling is a tax on the weak and hopeless, and electronic slot machines are the worst. There’s no skill involved in playing slot machines; payouts are determined by a random number generator in a computer chip. They’re mindless and designed to hook you in with small random payouts. They’re fast at taking your money, since there’s no silly game to take up time in between bets. They show "near-misses" like two of three elements for a winning combination; even though these results are not any closer to a winning combination than anything else, such "near-misses" tend to keep players playing, at no cost to the owner. Gambling gadfly Roger Horbay calls electronic slots "the crack cocaine of the gambling industry,", and they are widely considered the most addictive form of gambling.
I know the text at the top doesn’t mention the words "electronic slot machines"; it authorized "electronic scratch ticket machines". These are defined as "a scratch ticket lottery game…that is played in a electronic environment." Effectively, there’s no difference.
So, I-892 would have the state government double the number of these highly addictive electronic gaming machines in the state. What do we get in return?
According to the initiative, we would see a reduction in property taxes. The licensee gets 65% of the net win. Out of the other 35%, the state would pay the administrative costs of the program and set aside 1% for dealing with the gambling addiction problems created by the program. Whatever money is left after that is used to reduce the property tax. How much will that be? No one knows, because it’s dependent upon how much we gamble and how much the operators pay out.
Property taxes are a relatively stable source of revenue for governments. They’re generally fairly progressive; you only pay property taxes if you own property and you pay more taxes the more your property is worth. Property taxes are one of the primary sources of funding for public education.
Gambling revenues, on the other hand, are much more volatile, fluctuating much more. They’re dependent upon how much people gamble, what the competition for the entertainment dollar is, what the operator profit is, what the payout percentage is on the machines, among others. Gamblers are also disproportionately drawn from lower income brackets, people looking for the big win as a way out of their poverty, so any relief in property taxes would come from a regressive source.
Gambling addiction is a very real problem. Is an uncertain property tax break worth dramatically expanding gambling in this state, which will certainly also increase the number of problem gamblers? Of course, I guess those slot machines down the street will probably decrease your property value, which will also decrease your property taxes. What a win, huh?
Websites of interest:
http://www.camh.net/egambling/archive/pdf/JGI-issue11-turner-horbay.pdf - an overview of electronic gaming machines and how they work.