Can you see it -- the glittering lights, the suave dealers, the big name entertainers -- a casino in Daytona Beach?
Sure you can. In the same way local folks believe in their hearts that we should be able to drive on the beach, they believe in their souls that gambling is coming to our shores.
It isn't.
Even though lawmakers just allowed Broward County's pari-mutuel racetracks to install 6,000 Las Vegas-style slot machines, it isn't. Even though Florida's other dog and horse tracks, including Daytona Beach's, are chomping at the bit for slots of their own, it isn't. And even though a gambling boat leaves from Ponce Inlet two or three times a day, no casino is coming to Daytona Beach.
Here's why. Number one, we don't have American Indians. Florida only allows casinos on reservations. Even there, they can operate just the games the state allows, which are bingo-style slot machines and $2-a-bet poker.
The Daytona Beach Kennel Club can't become a racino, either, like the four Broward tracks that will soon have real slot machines with big payouts like in Las Vegas. Floridians changed the state constitution to allow Broward and Miami-Dade county voters to decide if they wanted full-fledged slot machines. Broward did, Dade didn't. No one has any plans to initiate similar petitions for Volusia County.
The gambling industry even polled residents in places like Tampa, St. Pete and Daytona Beach to see if they would support games like slot machines and video lottery. They didn't.
Finally, Gov. Jeb Bush and legislative leaders hate gambling. Hate it. The only reason they permitted the slot machines in Broward is because the courts said they had to.
That didn't keep lawmakers from sending up a hue and cry you could hear from Miami to Pensacola during last week's special session. They limited each track to 1,500 machines, a minor number. And they extracted one of the highest tax rates in the country, 50 percent, plus millions in fees for local governments. The tax money will go to public schools.
Florida voters don't much like gambling, either. They voted down constitutional amendments to open the state to Las Vegas-style gambling three times in the 1990s.
Still, the belief persists. Rumors abound. When the old Adams Mark doubled its size, people predicted it was to accommodate tourists flocking to a new casino. When the city approved two new condo hotel towers for the Boardwalk, folks conjectured they would sport Las Vegas-style games.
Maybe they're right. Maybe their ideas will seem prescient in a few years.
The gambling industry is the most persistent lobbying group in the state. Year after year, they ask lawmakers to allow them to expand --video lottery, bigger payouts for racetrack poker, real slot machines and on. Bush and legislative leaders rebuff them, but after next year, they're gone.
So gambling concerns wait. The day will come when the state will need money and won't have it -- money to improve schools and pay for health care, money to build highways and rebuild after hurricanes. Lawmakers won't want to raise taxes. There it will be, easy money just a law away.
It's hard to comprehend how much gambling brings in. The state's 25 horse and dog tracks earned $38 million this year from $2-a-bet poker, double last year's take. Experts predict Broward's 6,000 slot machines will rake in $350-500 million their first year. The state lottery, pedestrian as it is, nets over $1 billion annually.
But imagine paying for the needs of Florida with the quarters of retirees, immigrants and gambling addicts. Can you see it -- Daytona Beach, a city with more than its share of criminals, prostitutes and the poor -- with a casino? That's not a vision, that's a nightmare.