#80 © Copyright 2002, all rights reserved worldwide GAMBLING AND THE LAW® is a registered trademark of Professor I Nelson Rose, Whittier Law School, Costa Mesa, CA

[Please note: I am a consultant for the Arizona Department of Gaming.  The opinions expressed in this column are my own and do not represent those of the Department nor the State of Arizona.]

This November, Arizona's voters will be asked to solve a decades-old problem.  They will face three complex, conflicting initiatives involving tribal casinos and slot machines at race tracks.  The State Legislature threw up its hands, after spending years conducting hearings, drafting and redrafting bills, researching and debating these exact same issues.

Legislators are elected to make laws.  They abdicate their responsibility when they force voters to decide among complicated measures with little more to go on than campaign ads.

It costs a lot of money to gather signatures for an initiative, and millions more to win at the polls.  Legislators introduce bills to benefit their constituents.  Special interests write initiatives to benefit themselves.  To understand the true intent of a measure you have to first know who wanted it on the ballot.

The principal players in Arizona are:

1)  Gov. Jane Hull, who negotiated casino compacts, thrown into question by a federal court, with 17 of the state's tribes;

2)  Those 17 tribes, which will lose hundreds of millions of dollars if their casinos are shut down;

3)  The Colorado River Indian Tribes (“CRITs”), which do not like the restrictions contained in the present compacts; and

4)  The state's racetracks, which, like racetracks everywhere, feel they need slot machines to survive.

The Governor and 17 tribes propose an “Indian Gaming Preservation and Self-Reliance Act.”  It is 40 pages long, single-spaced.  The CRITs' initiative is the shortest, but has the longest title, “Tribal-State Gaming Compact, College Scholarship and Elderly Care Act of 2002.”  The tracks proposal has the politically snappy name, “Fair Gaming Act.”

If voters approve all three initiatives in November, the one that gets the most votes becomes law, at least until the inevitable lawsuits.

The three proposals offer widely different plans for gambling in Arizona.  The plan from the Governor and 17 tribes, not surprisingly, looks a lot like the current compacts.  It would allow tribes now involved in gaming to have up to 29 casinos.  As the product of political compromise, it offers few round numbers: a tribe could have no more than 998 slot machines, with a state cap of 15,675.

The CRITs proposal would allow the gaming tribes to have up to 45 casinos with no limit on casino size and a state cap of 21,492 slot machines.

The most arresting part of the CRITs initiative is the little noticed clause that would allow tribes to offer all forms of gambling permitted under the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act.  Which means all forms of gambling, period.  Arizona tribes could open Internet casinos, taking bets from inside the state.

The tracks propose allowing gaming tribes to have up to 27 casinos with 19,600 slots.  But the initiative spends little space on tribal gaming, because its real goal is to bring 6,450 slot machines to ten racetracks.  Only eight existing track permit holder could qualify; it is interesting to speculate who would get those last two “racino” licenses.

The tracks' plan would raise the most money for the state, since they are willing to tax themselves at a hefty 40%.  But it also would impose an 8% tax on tribes.  The federal Department of Interior never approves of revenue-sharing like this, unless the tribes are given something like a monopoly.

The following table summarizes the major differences among these initiatives.

Arizona Casino Initiatives

For more, visit Professor Rose's website: www.GamblingAndTheLaw.com

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