GAMBLING SLOT MACHINES

Bill banning slots is pulled Proposals for metro casino, slots at racetrack still alive

A House Republican attempting to pressure Minnesota's Indian tribes to share their casino profits with the state decided Friday to delay a committee vote indefinitely on his bill to outlaw slot machines.

The action by Rep. Jim Knoblach of St. Cloud means the effort to use the threat of a slot machine ban to leverage payments from tribes has little chance of passing this session.

Knoblach said he could try to revive the bill at any time in the House, but he acknowledged that a companion Senate measure faces strong opposition from both Democrats and Republicans.

Knoblach's decision to avoid a vote that he said he might have lost leaves two major gambling bills active in the Legislature: A proposal to allow the state lottery to operate a casino at the Canterbury Park racetrack and one to have the lottery open a metro-area casino in partnership with two northern tribes.

Passage of Knoblach's anti-slots legislation would undercut Republican budget strategies in both the House and Senate to count on potential Canterbury casino revenue to help fill a $160 million state budget deficit.

The anti-slots bills sponsored by Knoblach in the House and Tom Neuville, R-Northfield, in the Senate, outraged Indian leaders. They called the threat to outlaw video slot machines a blatant attempt to extort money from their businesses.

"It appears that you mistakenly believed this bill would compel tribes to 're-negotiate' their existing compacts," said John McCarthy, an Indian gambling official. "Instead, it has strengthened their determination to maintain the existing compacts at all costs."

McCarthy, the executive director of the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association, made his comments in a letter to Knoblach. The letter was read at a Friday meeting of the Governmental Operations and Veterans Affairs Committee.

Before asking the committee to postpone a vote on his bill, Knoblach said he believed Minnesota is at a "crossroads" on gambling — either the tribes will decide to share their substantial gaming profits with the state, or lawmakers eventually will approve a dramatic expansion of gambling that would destroy the current Indian casino monopoly.

He said Minnesota, which receives only about $150,000 a year from the tribes to inspect casino machines, has "the worst deal in the country in our Indian compacts."

If Minnesota had the same deal with its tribes that Connecticut officials struck with tribes there, Minnesota would receive up to $300 million a year, Knoblach said.

Neuville said in an interview that his anti-slots bill is a "nonstarter" in the Senate unless Knoblach demonstrates he can pass the legislation in the House. But Neuville said the bill might not be dead.

"There's time for this idea to percolate out in the public and for them to call their legislators," Neuville said.

Knoblach's and Neuville's bill would ban all slot machines in the state effective Jan. 1, 2006. But the ban would not go into effect if all 11 Minnesota tribes signed new agreements to share their casino profits with the state and with each other in a way that would benefit poorer northern tribes.

While the bills are aimed at winning concessions from the tribes, the threat of outlawing slot machines would have applied equally to the slots many Republican legislators — including Knoblach — want to put at Canterbury.

That's why a committee vote Friday to approve Knoblach's bill would have put it on collision course with a budget-balancing bill House leaders plan to announce next week.

Before Knoblach announced that he would not seek a vote, Rep. Carl Jacobson attempted to amend the anti-slots legislation to repeal almost all legal gambling in Minnesota — charitable gaming on bingo and pull-tabs, pari-mutuel betting at Canterbury and the lottery.

Jacobson, R-Vadnais Heights, offered the amendment as a gesture he knew was unlikely to pass. It was defeated 12-4.

Source: Pioneer Press