How lucrative are slot machines? It wasn't many years ago that local bingo games -long a dependable way to
raise money for churches and fraternal organizations -- were suffering because the Seminole Indian Tribe was
running a gigantic bingo hall in Tampa that offered a game with a payoff of $125,000.
While local games were limited by state law to one or two jackpots a night of a few hundred dollars, bingo on
the sovereign lands of the Seminoles was exempt from such limits.
Several years ago, the tribe added slot machines. Although the state doesn't permit slot machines -- and
therefore they aren't allowed, even on tribal land -- the Seminoles managed to get around the ban through
technicalities. The machines are Class II slots and lack some of the features found on their Las Vegas
counterparts. From the crowds, gamblers don't seem to mind.
Bingo remained, although relegated to a smaller role in the gambling operation. The 800 seats from the glory
days had been reduced to nearly a quarter of that by last November.
At the beginning of the month, the tribe -- which has since opened the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino --
announced it was closing the bingo area to add another 225 slot machines. "It has to do with the demand, the
demand for newer, more exciting, more unique slot machines," Gary Bitner, spokesman for the hotel, told
The Tampa Tribune.
Gambling revenues have something to do with it too. Bill Eadington, director of the Institute of Gambling and
Gambling Regulation at the University of Nevada in Reno, told the paper that a slot machine in a monopoly
area such as Tampa can bring in $500 a day. Bingo offers only a fraction of that, while consuming far more
floor space than slot machines. What's happened in Tampa is only "a phenomenon happening across Indian
land."
Interestingly, the Seminole slot machine operation ate into its bingo game until it finally devoured it. Little do
they care because they control both, and since slots are far more lucrative than bingo cards.
And that avaricious appetite for money is exactly what Gov. Jeb Bush referred to when he was campaigning
last month against a push to allow slot machines at pari-mutuel facilities in Broward and Miami-Dade
counties.
Placing slot machines at tracks and frontons would "have a negative impact on the social fabric and economic
health of our state," said Bush, who cited a state study noting that gambling's expansion would "result in
overall net costs from the cannibalization of existing businesses and increased crime and unemployment
rates."
On Tuesday, voters partly listened to the governor. In MiamiDade, where Bush spent all day Friday
campaigning against slots, voters defeated the issue 48 percent to 48 percent. Broward voters approved the
question 57 percent to 43 percent.
It's not what the gambling industry in South Florida had in mind. The Legislature will have to enact enabling
legislation and decide how the money, once collected, will be distributed. (It's supposedly earmarked for
education, but that was also the case when voters approved the lottery. Or, in the words of Gov. Bush,
"Gambling interests are seducing the voters with the hollow promise of more education funding.")
Broward's and Miami-Dade's legislative delegations likely would have lobbied for a larger cut of the money
going back to the counties because they would be generating the revenues. But Broward's
delegation, now guaranteed slots for its four pari-mutuel locations, is no longer on the same page with Miami-Dade. The dynamics have changed considerably.
Dan Adkins, chairman of the pro-slots campaign and an executive at Hollywood Greyhound Track in Broward
County, bemoaned the loss in Miami-Dade. "When Dade County sees how positive this is, when they see the
capital improvements, the jobs created, Dade will see how this will work."
Here's the way the governor sees it: "The true costs are significant and real: long-term decay of our
traditional industries and . . . of our communities."
Here's how a study published in the Journal of Contemporary Economic Policy saw it: Counties in Nevada,
New Jersey, California and Connecticut had an 18 percent higher rate of bankruptcy filings than those
without. Counties with five or more gambling outlets had a 35 percent higher bankruptcy rate than those
without. Counties with the highest bankruptcy rates were those in closest proximity to major gambling
casinos.
The voters of Broward County saw gambling as an enticement. Miami-Dade voters took the road less
traveled. Years from now, perhaps they, like poet Robert Frost, will find "that has made all the difference."