And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: From: "Victor Rocha" Subject: Gambling duel nearing climax Date: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 10:13:28 -0700 Dan Walters: Gambling duel nearing climax (Published July 12, 1999) SAN PABLO -- Casino San Pablo, an Arabian Nights-styled palace plopped down amid strip malls and fast-food outlets just off Interstate 80, has become ground zero in California's complex war over gambling. The casino, a pumped-up poker parlor, is doing poorly, disappointing officials in this small Contra Costa County city who had hoped it would generate big bucks for city coffers. The casino is also a loser for its British owner, Ladbroke Group PLC, that also operates nearby Golden Gate Fields, and Ladbroke wants to peddle it to an obscure Sonoma County Indian tribe. Therein lies the rub. If the Lytton tribe's takeover is approved by federal authorities -- by no means a certainty -- Casino San Pablo would be converted into the only full-fledged casino, complete with slot machines, in a major California urban area. While Indian tribes operate full casinos now in California, all but a few are in rural areas and their slot machines -- 80 percent of their profits -- are legally shaky. The tribes claim that the slots are legal, but state and federal authorities contend they are not. The major casino-operating tribes sponsored a ballot measure last year (Proposition 5) that ostensibly legalized their slots, but the measure faces an uncertain fate in the courts. The state's new governor, Gray Davis, expresses sympathy for the Indians but says he wants only a "modest" increase in slot machines as part of any agreement with the tribes, while the tribes want no limits on slots. Rural casino tribes are bitterly opposing the sale of Casino San Pablo, clearly worried that it would touch off a feeding frenzy of buying or building urban casinos that would doom rural facilities. Ladbroke, meanwhile, is trying to position itself to make the best of a bad deal. It's pushing legislation that would allow it to directly operate Casino San Pablo, rather than contract operation to a separate firm, thus putting the British firm in position to manage the casino if the Lytton sale occurs. Ladbroke's bill is being carried by Sen. Don Perata, D-Oakland, who chairs the Senate committee that oversees gambling. If the Indian tribes are divided over the Casino San Pablo deal -- as well as political strategy in dealing with the overarching issue of slot machines -- so is the state's cardroom industry. Operators of larger cardrooms see a Ladbroke/Lytton deal as increasing the value of their properties. Tribes now operating rural casinos would be forced, they say, to make bids for urban facilities and install slot machines. If Indian casino slot machines are legalized, either through judicial ratification of Proposition 5 or a deal with the Davis administration, cardrooms also are prepared to mount a full-court press in the Capitol to gain slot machine authority for themselves. Significantly, perhaps, there's a new surge in large cardroom construction in Southern California, including a $30 million investment by Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt in Gardena. The small, neighborhood cardrooms, however, are already being squeezed by the big guys and see great peril in any arrangement that introduces full casino gambling into urban areas. And to open still another front in California's gambling war, last week a San Francisco attorney filed preliminary notice of a potential 2000 ballot measure that would authorize slot machines at Golden Gate and other major horse racing tracks. Underlying everything is a pervasive belief that full-scale, Nevada-style gambling is coming to California -- probably sooner, rather than later -- and the real fight is over who will get in on the ground floor. DAN WALTERS' column appears daily except Saturday. Mail: P.O. Box 15779, Sacramento, 95852; phone: (916) 321-1195; fax: (916) 444-7838; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.capitolalert.com/news/capalert01_19990712.html Reprinted under the Fair Use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ UPDATES: CAMP JUSTICE http://shell.webbernet.net/~ishgooda/oglala/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
