Gov. Hassan Defends Support for Gambling

Gov. Maggie Hassan defended her support of expanded gambling in New Hampshire on NHPR on Monday.

Hassan, appearing on NHPR's "The Exchange," said if the Granite State doesn't build a casino, it will be effectively giving away $75 million a year to Massachusetts and Maine.

"We are going to have casinos right over our border," she said. "People already go to casinos in Connecticut and Maine. With casinos right over the border in Massachusetts, they're going to go there. We're going to get all the problems but we're not going to get any of the revenue to address them properly."

Done properly, Hassan said, one high-end, well regulated casino "could in fact create jobs and save us from losing $75 million in revenue that will go to Massachusetts and Maine. Rockingham Park in Salem has consistently been mentioned as a possible site for such a casino.

By high-end, she said she means the type of casino that would attract people who see it as a vacation and go there for the entertainment as well as the gambling.

"It's a facility that has restaurants and other venues that people like to see," Hassan said.

"I think doing one in a community that votes to accept it and wants it makes a lot of sense to capture revenue that we will otherwise lose," she added. "I don't want us to be investing in Massachusetts' and Maine's needs when we could be investing in our own, and i don't want us to be at their mercy."

Hassan said she's heard from some ski areas that say people come to ski during the day but go over the border to Maine to gamble at night.

During the hour-long interview on NHPR, Hassan was also asked if she had ever been to a casino.

"I have visited a casino or two," she said. Asked if she gambled, she said, "I didn't. But I watched what other people were doing."