THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 26, 1994 TAG: 9408260568
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
Legalized riverboat gambling would bring millions of dollars in new revenue to North Carolina's coastal communities, and developments this week indicated that the emotional issue will become a high-stakes poker game when the General Assembly convenes in January.
In a surprising development Thursday, N.C. House Speaker Daniel T. Blue Jr. let it be known through a spokesman that he would be willing to consider privately operated casino wagering.
Blue's opposition to a state-run lottery in North Carolina killed a referendum for that type of gambling when the issue came up in the legislature two years ago.
``Casino operations by private industry wouldn't violate the speaker's rule against state-run betting,'' said Alan Briggs, Blue's legal counsel and chief spokesman.
``But the speaker also feels that any kind of legalized gambling will bring up unpleasant possibilities,'' Briggs added.
In the upper house, state Sen. Marc Basnight, D-Dare, said he would ``not oppose a referendum by the people'' to decide the riverboat gambling proposal.
``I expect legislation for that kind of gambling will probably originate in the House,'' said Basnight, president pro tem of the N.C. Senate. ``I wouldn't oppose letting the people decide, but if there was a straight-up vote for or against gambling, I would vote `no' ''
A long-running feud between Blue and Basnight began two years ago when Blue repeatedly gaveled down efforts to pass a Senate bill that would have allowed voters to decide by referendum whether they wanted a lottery.
A majority in the Senate wanted the lottery in order to stop the flow of North Carolina money into the Virginia lottery just across the border.
The N.C. lottery bill was sponsored in 1992 by then state Sen. Kenneth Royall Jr., D-Durham, a mentor and friend of Basnight as well as one of the senior Democratic senators who helped Basnight win election as president pro tem.
Royall retired last year and is now an influential adviser on the staff of Gov. James B. Hunt Jr.
Hunt, like Basnight, is personally opposed to gambling and said so again when he had to resolve a dispute earlier this month with a group of Cherokee Indians at Cherokee, N.C.
The Indians wanted to build several gambling casinos on their reservation in western North Carolina, but, after negotiations with the governor, they settled for one betting establishment where games like bingo and television poker would be allowed.
The sudden interest in casino-type wagering, particularly in luxurious floating poker palaces, grew out of tours recently staged for members of the General Assembly by gambling lobbyists during a New Orleans convention of state legislators.
N.C. Reps. Milton F. Fitch Jr., D-Wilson, and Howard J. Hunter Jr., D-Murfreesboro, were among the local legislators who went to New Orleans. Fitch and Hunter were taken on an inspection tour of one pleasure palace in nearby Mississippi where legal gambling was in full swing aboard a floating dockside casino.
``This place took in $92 million in local taxes,'' a representative of thecasino was quoted as saying.
Legalization of riverboat gambling has increasingly attracted the attention of legislators since such states such as Iowa, Illinois and Indiana authorized public betting as a means of broadening the tax base.
Because of the large number of cash-short N.C. coastal communities that would benefit from taxes on floating betting palaces, considerable support is expected for new gaming proposals when the new Assembly convenes Jan. 25 in Raleigh.
Last Feb. 15, the Virginia House of Delegates voted down a waterborne gambling proposal, 55-42, but Charles Davis, a Richmond lobbyist who represents the Virginia Riverboat Council, said he expected the measure to come up again when the Virginia legislators convene next year.
``That was a close vote across party lines,'' said Davis. ``We estimate that riverboat wagering would bring 24,000 new jobs to Virginia and at least $133 million in state and local taxes every year.''
Frequently mentioned during the N.C. General Assembly discussion of Sen. Royall's proposed lottery bill was the experience of Currituck County after World War II when betting was legalized.
Thousands of Tidewater bettors came down nightly when pari-mutuel wagering at a Moyock dog-track was in full swing.
As a result, Currituck residents paid virtually no county taxes until pressure by religious groups forced the dog track to close. by CNB