Struggling Ohio opens doors to casinos

UPDATED:

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Efforts were already under way Wednesday to improve the government’s lot in a deal voters have approved to bring casinos to four Ohio cities.

State Rep. Clyde Evans, a Rio Grande Republican, announced his intention to pursue a constitutional amendment next year that gives government a greater share of casino proceeds. He would like the tax rate on the facilities to be 60 percent versus the current 33 percent. The facilities are to be located in Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo.

“I will be open to working with all parties but I am adamant that only one special interest group will benefit, and that group will be the people of the great state of Ohio,” Evans said at a news conference.

Fellow GOP lawmaker Lou Blessing has expressed his interest in asking voters to consider a May ballot question seeking changes to the casino plan.

Gambling industry analyst Jeffrey Hooke predicted opponents would launch an expensive counterattack against any ballot initiative that emerges from the Legislature.

Officials from Penn National Gaming, which will build the casinos, scheduled a news conference later Wednesday.

Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, who joined with Penn in the expensive ballot campaign, said he would start first thing Wednesday making plans for the four casinos that Ohio voters wrote into the state Constitution.

“Let’s start lighting it up like Las Vegas,” a giddy Gilbert said Tuesday after learning of Tuesday’s election results.

Passage of Issue 3 marked a significant victory for Gilbert and Penn National Gaming Inc., who spent nearly $35 million to persuade one of America’s most stubborn anti-gambling states to change its mind. It marked the fifth time in 20 years a gambling expansion was proposed in the state, with all four previous attempts rejected.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting unofficial results, Issue 3 passed 53 percent to 47 percent.

The issue amends the state Constitution by authorizing casinos in Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo, sets a 33 percent tax rate and outlines how the money will be distributed. Penn National president David Wilmott predicted all four casinos would be built in a little over two years.

David Zanotti of the Ohio Policy Roundtable, an anti-gambling activist, said citizens of a state with more than 10 percent unemployment were enticed by omnipresent ads promising 34,000 jobs.

“It’s pretty obvious that the Ohio electorate bought into the whole culture of despair that’s going on with the economy,” he said.

Ohio becomes the 39th state to legalize casinos and a coveted prize that had held out among neighboring casino states Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. TruthPAC, backed by MTR Gaming Inc. chairman Jeffrey Jacobs, spent almost $6 million opposing the measure.

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