Editorial

Don't vote for 421, but if you do, vote for Amendment 3

Thursday, October 26, 2006

After a number of years without a keno outlet -- due in part to the use illegal video slots that were subject of a major State Patrol raid -- McCook is back in the keno business just in time for a major change in the system.

A week from next Tuesday, voters will be asked to approve Initiative 421, which supporters say will offer communities the opportunity to modernize and improve keno with an electronic self-serve version of the game.

That will make for more tax-free income for Nebraska communities, they say, which goes toward parks, pools, playgrounds, libraries, fire trucks, police cars and other improvements.

McCook's keno operation hasn't been back in operation long enough for us to judge how much we will benefit from keno income, although the potential has often been overstated.

But opponents have plenty to say about the issue, calling video keno just another name for "slot machines."

"They're playing with the vocabulary," opponent Pat Loontjer told the Columbus Telegram. "There's no grassroots effort begging for slots in every neighborhood."

The proposal would eliminate the five-minute delay between keno games, Loontjer said, allowing a play as quickly as every two seconds. And while the machines won't have a pull handle, spinning reel, coin pan or other slot machines appurtenances, there's nothing keeping the screen from prominently displaying traditional slot machine reels.

Her organization, Gambling With the Good Life, calls slots the "crack cocaine of gambling," that usher in addiction, bankruptcies, domestic abuse, divorces, crime and suicide.

McCook already has enough of those.

We hope readers will vote against Initiative 421.

If they vote for it, however, we hope they will also vote for Amendment 3, which will increase the amount of state lottery proceeds that go to assisting compulsive gamblers.

If gambling is made easier in Nebraska, compulsive gamblers will need all the help they can get.

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