Editorial: No to slot machines at Phoenix airport

Tuesday, July 22, 2008  

"Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon last week suggested gambling machines at the airport - a la nearby McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas - as a revenue-enhancer.

The last time Arizona contemplated casino gambling was in 2002, when a trio of ballot measures competed for votes. Just one, Proposition 202, passed, setting the stage for the plethora of lavish tribal casinos and entertainment venues that now dot the Valley landscape.

Six years is a political eternity, but we are guessing the popular sentiment then has not changed much: Yes, voters (by a thin margin) supported tribal gaming, but with a number of caveats. Premier among them, as poll after poll clearly attested, was that gambling emporiums on tribal lands were one thing; gambling elsewhere (like, oh, at the airport) was firmly opposed. One poll just before the 2002 election, conducted by Northern Arizona University, found that 56 percent of voters opposed the spread of gaming off reservations. Others found considerably more opposition.

If popular resistance doesn't knock this idea down, the profound legal complexity confronting it probably will.

Proposition 202 contained within it a provision known as a "poison pill," which stipulated that if Arizona permitted gambling anywhere but on tribal property, nearly all the containment strategies would be voided. All the restrictions on the numbers of gaming tables and slot machines could disappear. The per-tribe limits on the number of casinos would likely no longer apply. And, should all that and perhaps more come to pass, the stage would be set for the gambling-saturated environment that defines much of Nevada today."

Get the Story:
Editorial: Gordon's bad bet (The Arizona Republic 7/22)