Analysts in North Carolina were more or less sure that Governor Bev Perdue was seriously considering regulating video gambling in the state. It was expected that the Governor would address the issue in the new budget. But in the end, the Governor decided to push away the issue for discussion in another session.
The law makers of the state have been trying for the past many years to make the gambling laws more stringent so that video gambling can be closed down completely. The loop holes in the state laws have been has been exploited by gambling owners expertly to install video gambling machines all over the state. While the legislators were dead against the proliferation of these machines, the Governor was motivated to go against popular opinion because of the potential earnings of several million dollars that these machines could bring to the state coffers.
Quite contrary to expectations, Governor Perdue did not include the gambling video revenue in the budget proposal. This clearly indicates that she has back-tracked, at least for the present. It must have been clear to the Governor that the issue would cause a lengthy and acrimonious debate which could have resulted in the proposal getting defeated in the end. The Governor is believed to have expressed an unwillingness to have a botched record.
The Governor is of the view that the debate over the issue can wait, especially when there are more critical matters to be resolved in the state. Jobs and education are important matters that have cast a cloud of uncertainty over the future of North Carolina citizens. According to the Governor’s close aides, Perdue is clearly not comfortable letting the philosophical and moral debate about video gambling and lottery take precedence over other pressing issues.
There are many states facing similar situations. A few have gone ahead and staged the debate with pro-gambling legislators pulling off a win in most cases. The debate was clearly won on the argument that gambling will create more jobs and more revenues. It outweighed the negative impact for many lawmakers.
The argument is being won by stating the examples of states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maine, Maryland, and many other states in the Midwest in which gaming has become a great savior after the economic debacle of 2008. The success of online gambling legislation has led to these states moving closer to full scale casino gambling. They have not only added slots, but other attractions too have been introduced for gamblers like table games.
In January, two slot casinos at Maryland won over $10 million from gamblers. As compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars that New Jersey casinos are bringing in, Maryland has a long, long way to go. The story is similar in Pennsylvania where these casinos have become the gaming leaders on the East Coast. The legalizing of table games has added to the revenue enormously. Pennsylvania is now in a position to compete with gambling giants such as Atlantic City for gaining gaming supremacy.
The casinos of Maryland come into the industry at a time when casinos are struggling all across the US. The effects of the economic recession on the gambling industry are far from over with experts predicting a complete recovery not earlier than 2012.