By MIKE NORMAN
mnorman@star-telegram.com
What’s that rumbling noise in the distance? It sounds like thunder — or maybe thoroughbreds pounding their way around a track in a heated race.
Or maybe it’s the sound of slot machines pounding their way to Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie and other tracks across the state.
That’s what track owners, breeders and trainers, and others associated with the horse and greyhound racing industry in Texas would like you to hear.
Some big players in the casino business would rather you hear it as construction sounds for casinos in major cities across Texas (including Fort Worth) and on Gulf Coast islands.
The campaign for expanded gambling in Texas through resort-style casinos or track-based "racinos" has been a very distant rumble lately, but it hasn’t gone away. In fact, it’s safe to say it could come roaring back very strong in the 2011 or 2013 legislative sessions.
Politically powerful new owners of Lone Star Park, led by Global Gaming Solutions, an enterprise owned by the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma, could help trigger the resurgence.
Racing industry leaders are sure that Global Gaming will want to take the racino route to increase revenue from Lone Star Park rather than back approval of casinos.
Casinos in Dallas-Fort Worth would take business away from other Chickasaw properties, including the Winstar casino just across the border in Oklahoma.
The Legislature permitted wagering on races at Texas horse and dog tracks through a bill adopted in 1987. The industry, in Texas and around the nation, has been declining almost ever since as people have found other ways to gamble.
In 2003, track owners began a push to revive their revenue through slot machines. That revenue could boost purses for winners, in turn stimulating the breeding and training businesses and providing more tax revenue for the state.
Then the casino people came in and wanted to increase the state interest in gambling even more.
So far, the Legislature hasn’t been buying any of it, although the lure is certainly tempting. Gambling advocates point out that the state is losing billions of dollars in tax revenue as Texans travel to Louisiana, Oklahoma and New Mexico to place their bets.
Part of the political problem is that the track people and the casino people haven’t been able to unite behind a solid front. In last year’s session, a gambling bill called for a significantly higher tax rate at tracks than at casinos, which upset the track people no end. It went nowhere.
But there’s an even bigger problem: So far, the state has not faced a financial crisis severe enough to put lawmakers on a desperate search for new revenue — desperate enough to overcome traditionally strong anti-gambling forces.
If the sentiments that have prevailed in Austin since 2003 are any indication, it’s unlikely that legislators will approve expanded gambling because it’s a good idea, or even just because it will provide more revenue. They’ll have to be out of other ideas first.
That day could be coming.
There’s a lot of talk that Texas will face a severe budget crisis in 2011, but take it with a grain of salt.
Sure, lawmakers will have to replace $12 billion in federal economic stimulus money that balanced the current budget but will not be available next year. But they’ll have almost $9 billion in the state’s Rainy Day Fund to help with that. State agency cutbacks already ordered by top officials should take care of much of the rest.
The real crisis is likely to come in 2013, after the Rainy Day Fund has been sucked dry. That’s when gambling revenue could come to the rescue — galloping in on horseback, perhaps.
Meanwhile, gamblers can wait or continue to go out of state.
Mike Norman is editorial director of the Star-Telegram/ Arlington and Northeast Tarrant County. 817-390-7830
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