Look, Dad," my son said with that sense of awe-struck discovery that 6-year-olds feel a few times every day.
"Machines that give you money!"
We were on a very long escalator in Reno, gliding above the Peppermill Hotel's mammoth casino about 10
years ago. My wife and I reflexively began assuring Chris that the glittering machines with the pinwheel
tumblers, flashing lights, calliope music, sirens and clanging coin trays were really there to take your money.
Miami-Dade and Broward County voters aren't children, but many apparently believe we can have a painless
fix for tough financial problems, with machines that give us money. It's as if they forgot how those things got
named "one-armed bandits."
Floridians adopted a constitutional amendment last fall allowing the two counties to vote on having slot
machines at pari-mutuel establishments. Broward opted in this week, while implementation fell short in
Miami-Dade.
That means the Legislature will now decide how to regulate and tax slot revenues from Broward's horse and
dog tracks and jai-alai frontons. It means that - seeing all that new revenue right next door - Miami-Dade will
surely have another referendum on the idea in two years.
And it means Seminole and Miccosukee tribes, which opposed the county initiatives this week, will lobby to
protect their own gambling interests from competition - not to mention taxes. It's also an undeniable foot in
the door for statewide casino gambling, complete with roulette, dice and card games, keno and sports books
in a few years.
Gov. Jeb Bush and the Legislature's presiding officers urged rejection of the slots by both counties. It would
have been easy for them to have kept silent or even to have approved the idea, since a slim majority of
voters gave them cover last Nov. 2 by authorizing the vote.
After all, casino backers promised millions in new revenue for schools - statewide, not just in Broward and
Miami-Dade - and it's not like people in horse tracks, dog tracks and jai-alai frontons aren't already there to
gamble. Besides, isn't the state itself fleecing people with its aggressively advertised lottery "products,"
which were sold to us as a bonanza for the schools in 1986?
Even Nevadans, whose take-your-chances tradition is so pervasive that they have legal brothels, is too
honest to run a lottery. As a popular bumper sticker out there says, "Lotteries are a tax on people who are
bad at math."
Well, at least "gaming" - the euphemism chosen to make you think you have a decent chance - is a sort of
voluntary tax.
Bush, who previously tried to get rid of those "cruise to nowhere" gambling ships, put a lot of his political
chips on a the slots referendum and he won in his home county. As he said, this is not James Bond out for an
evening of baccarat; it's more like busloads of grandmas sitting on a stool all day, wasting their Social
Security money.
If that's what South Florida wants, then maybe the dreaded "New Jersey effect" isn't just a form of beach
erosion any more. Florida voters turned down various forms of casino gambling in 1978, 1986 and 1994 - by
steadily eroding margins - but it looks like the tide is turning.
And what of all that revenue the proponents promised for schools? Well, literally while the polls were open in
South Florida, industry representatives in Tallahassee were asking legislators to tax the swag as lightly as
possible.
Most of those new jobs that casino proponents brag about will be minimum-wage, no-benefits, part-time work
for restaurant employees and parking lot attendants. But there's one high-paying line of work that gambling
promotes - lobbying to help casino owners avoid taxation.
This will be fun to watch in the next few years, as the instinctively anti-tax Republicans have the chance to
tax a very lucrative source that was forced upon them.
The potential for corruption bears watching, too, with so much easy money involved. In 1931, when
pari-mutuel gambling was legalized, there were tales of payoffs being handed out at the doors of the House
and Senate chambers.
It won't be that bad, because today's legislators are smarter and getting caught is easier. But expect the
campaign contributions to flow from casino interests much like the envelopes of cash came from pari-mutuel
and liquor dealers back when Prohibition was ending and racing was just starting.
As the pari-mutuels become more dependent on slot revenue, and the state relies more on this revenue
source, there will be increasing pressure for more forms of gambling. Legislators, like small boys, should be
reminded, frequently, that there are no magic machines that give you money.
Contact political editor Bill Cotterell at (850) 671-6545 or bcotterell@tallahassee.com.