Gambling Bill Sponsors Unveil Amendment
It deals with proposed $80 million gaming license, regulations, and proceeds: DOT would get % of slot machine income to pay debt service on bonds to widen I-93.
Sponsors of the expanded gambling bill in New Hampshire unveiled a major amendment Friday that reflects, in part, the $80 million proposed gambling licensing revenue identified in Gov. Maggie Hassan's budget.
The amendment further spells out regulatory oversight, enforcement and support for the local community in which the casino facility would be located.
The bill has a public hearing Tuesday, 9 a.m., in Room 100 of the Statehouse. Here is the amendment to Senate Bill 152.
The sponsors are: Sens. Lou D'Allesandro (D-Manchester), Chuck Morse (R-Salem) and Jim Rausch (R-Derry).
Supporters of expanded gambling, whether at Rockingham Park or another southern New Hampshire site, cheered when Gov. Maggie Hassan included $80 million in gambling licensing funds for a high-end casino in her budget address Feb. 14. The Granite State Coalition Against Expanded Gambling skewered the proposal.
Read Hassan's budget address and see budget here.
The 41-page amendment notes that the Lottery Commission would charge an initial license fee of $80 million, upon approval, and said license would expire after 10 years. The renewal fee would be $1.5 million.
Other pieces of the amendment include:
- The Lottery Commission would impose a non-refundable application fee of $500,000 on all applicants.
- The applicant must obtain local approval of the municipality in which the project is proposed by local referendum.
- The applicant shall agree to make a minimum capital investment in the project that shall not be less than $425 million.
- The gaming licensee shall operate no more than 150 table games and no more than 5,000 video lottery machines at its location.
- Language for background checks and review by the Attorney General's office, language and reference support for problem gamblers, and the establishment of a gaming enforcement unit in the Division of State Police.
The amendment further spells out that proceeds of video lottery machines and table games would be distributed to municipalities where the facility is located, as well as abutting communities, as well as to the state's Education Trust Fund.
Proceeds, too, would be distributed for highway and bridge projects (including a percentage to pay debt service on bonds for widening of Interstate 93 from Salem to Manchester), higher education and North Country economic development.
One Man Wolf Pack
4:45 pm on Friday, February 15, 2013
So the 80 mil was not even on the table until it papered over some spending increases in the budget? lol What a racket........if we needed 50 or 150 mil would those have been the amendment amount? This is pathetic leadership and it is becoming obvious that there our legislature as a whole is making it up as they go along.
Jim U Lacrum
8:30 pm on Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Yes, precisely. The casino licensing fees are a deus ex machina concocted to patch the gap between the reality of state revenues and planned budget expenditures.
More insidiously, they're a backdoor method of restricting competition. A better plan to allow gambling would be to let New Hampshire–based businesses and entrepreneurs take a shot at it on smaller scales. That way, the money is being cycled back into New Hampshire either way. Instead, whoever amended this (Hassan?) would rather sell out that potential money to some Las Vegas corporation in order to inject the inflated budget with a magical funding source.
It's shameful, really, and indicative of an attitude that money should be made to fall from the sky because someone wants to spend it on something.
David Pittelli
12:02 am on Saturday, February 16, 2013
What about the casinos we already have? New Hampshire has gambling already, with limited stakes, for example at the Lakes Region Casino. Are those businesses going to be destroyed because someone else has $80 million? I think the existing facilities should be able to allow whatever kind of bets the state allows in the new, larger casino.
One Man Wolf Pack
6:54 pm on Saturday, February 16, 2013
"The 41-page amendment notes that the Lottery Commission would charge an initial license fee of $80 million, upon approval, and said license would expire after 10 years. The renewal fee would be $1.5 million."
So what is Hassan's idea to fill the 80 million dollar revenue gap in the NEXT biennium when there is not this 80 million dollar license fee as that covers 10 year? Shouldn't she only budget for 8 million as that is what the revenue will be prorated over the period of the license? This is crazy.