Big changes may be ahead for Louisiana gambling

Riverboat casinos would move onto land and get more space for their slot machines. Racetracks would offer more slot machines and betting on sports.
Harrah’s would receive a 30-year extension in its state contract to operate a monopoly casino in New Orleans and would build another hotel. Truck stop casinos would face fewer restrictions for operating their video poker emporiums.
Gambling interests will be seeking legislative approval beginning Tuesday to make these changes — and others — in what represents the biggest effort to expand the state’s gambling laws since the modern creation of the industry in Louisiana in the early 1990s.
Louisiana gambling industry could see big changes during upcoming legislative session
Promoters of the gambling measures say they will create or save jobs and will generate more tax revenue at a time when lawmakers are reluctant to raise income or sales taxes to fix the state’s budget shortfall.
Gene Mills, who is president of Louisiana Family Forum, said the various gambling interests are pushing 37 different bills.
Mills said his organization will oppose nearly all of the measures because they would either expand gambling or loosen existing regulations.
“There seems to be a coalescing around the idea that modernization is important for the industry,” he said. “But there are reasons that we put the original regulations in place: to safeguard against proliferation and corruption. There appears to be a conversation among people in the industry that everybody gets a little bit of something. They all seem to think they can move their bills forward.”
The initial hearing on gambling legislation gave them reason to be optimistic.
The first two gambling bills — sought by the truck stop casinos — passed the Senate Judiciary B Committee last week with none of the four committee members asking any substantive questions on the potential pitfalls of the legislation.
State Sen. Danny Martiny, R-Kenner, delayed presenting Senate Bill 184 until the truck stop casinos’ lobbyist, Alton Ashy, was sitting beside him, and Martiny then let Ashy do most of the talking.
SB 184 would allow the truck stop casinos to no longer have to report their fuel sales to the State Police. Under current law, truck stops have to average at least 100,000 gallons of fuel sales per month — with diesel sales accounting for at least 40,000 gallons — to be able to offer the maximum number of 50 video poker machines. Lower fuel sales means fewer machines.
Ashy told the committee members that many truck stop casinos are having trouble meeting the threshold needed to offer more machines because the construction of highway bypasses has cut them off from passing trucks.
Is there any downside to changing the law?
The committee members made no public effort to find out.
The current wording of SB184 seems to allow truck stop casinos that sell less than 100,000 gallons of fuel per month to expand to the 50-machine limit through the elimination of the State Police oversight. But in an interview Monday, Ashy said an amendment will be offered Tuesday when SB184 is heard on the Senate floor to specify that truck stop casinos would not be allowed to have more video poker machines even without the fuel sales minimum.
Martiny’s SB184 also would allow truck stop casinos to close restaurants that they now have to keep open for at least 12 hours a day.
Perhaps the biggest obstacle for the video poker industry could come from Senate President John Alario, R-Westwego.
In an interview Thursday, he said he worries that the money lost at the truck stop casinos is money not spent at local businesses.
“Video poker seems to be more in neighborhoods,” Alario said.
The Senate president also expressed a broader concern about the raft of gambling legislation.
“Every form of gaming has decided if somebody’s doing something, they want a piece of action, and I’m not sure each of those things are in the best interest of the people,” he said. “Further expansion of gaming I don’t think is very good for our economy as a whole.”
Gov. John Bel Edwards has yet to speak against any of the specific gambling bills other than to say he opposes “expansion.”
The governor appears willing to support the major legislation sought by the riverboat casinos, Senate Bill 316, which will be heard by the Judiciary B Committee on Tuesday. State Sen. Ronnie Johns, R-Lake Charles, is the sponsor. It would allow the 15 floating casinos to move onto land, within 1,200 feet of their designated berth space and a limit of 2,365 gambling machines would replace the original 1991 cap of 30,000 square feet of gambling space.
Judiciary B will hear other pro-gambling bills on Tuesday.
The governor also appears to support the measure pushed by Harrah’s, House Bill 553. It would grant the casino company the state operating contract extension and the right to build a new hotel and food court as part of a $350 million investment. HB553 is scheduled to be heard Wednesday morning by the Criminal Justice Committee.
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That committee also will hear measures sought by the four racetrack casinos — known as “racinos” — that would allow them to expand their gambling offerings.
Supporters of pro-gambling legislation before the Criminal Justice Committee on Wednesday or Thursday are: House Speaker Taylor Barras, R-New Iberia; state Rep. Kirk Talbot, R-River Ridge; state Rep. Major Thibaut, D-New Roads; and state Rep. Walt Leger III, D-New Orleans.
Judiciary B is scheduled to hear Senate Bill 417 sought by owners of a riverboat casino in Bossier Parish who have expressed a desire to move it to rural Tangipahoa Parish. SB417, sponsored by state Sen. Bodi White, R-Central, would add the shallow Tangipahoa to the list of waterways permitted for riverboat casinos and would authorize a parishwide vote in November on whether to approve the relocation.