Troopers Association Favors Casino Bill

The fight over expanded gambling in New Hampshire has a state organization tied to law enforcement at odds with the coalition trying to stop the most recent form of casino legislation.

In February, State Trooper Seth Cooper, the president of the N.H State Troopers Association, testified in front of , a bill that would legalize video slots and create four casino licenses in the state.

Cooper said his association has conferred with similar associations in Connecticut and Delaware, states with casino gambling. They asked about a possible increase in crime as a result of casinos.

"The boots on the ground aren't seeing this mass influx of low-end people with massive drug problems and causing rampant armed robberies on every street corner," Cooper told the committee. "They just aren't seeing it."

Cooper said the biggest increase in crimes will come as a result of an increase in people in a given area if casinos are legalized. He likened that increase to what happens in the North Country during ski season.

"We see different crimes that occur when you bring in more bodies," he said. "We have a rise in DUIs in the winter time, but I don't think anyone's going to outlaw skiing anytime soon. There have been no real mass murders, no real high impact of violent crimes that have come with these casinos that have gone into those two states."

Jim Rubens, the chair of the Granite State Coalition Against Expanded Gambling, said a recent study indicates the facts do not rest with Cooper's evaluation.

"A claim that a Salem casino would cause no more incremental crime than would a shopping center or ski area attracting the same number of visitors is objectively false," Rubens said.

Rubens cited the New Hampshire Gaming Study Commission Report from 2010 which showed that a casino in Salem would add 1,200 serious crimes each year in Salem and surrounding communities. The commission unanimously agreed with this assessment and Rubens said half the commission members were pro-casino.

"The Commission carefully evaluated voluminous evidence on the crime-casino link presented by both sides," Rubens said.

The N.H. Association of Chiefs of Police are part of the Granite State Coalition Against Expanded Gambling. Rubens said the chiefs, as well as every state Attorney General for the last 35 years, have been opposed to expanded gambling because those additional crimes "have large cost to victims and to the New Hampshire quality of life."

, including the aforementioned change from two casino licenses to four.

It's widely expected that in Salem would be in the running for a casino license should expanded gambling become law.