Published: September 22, 2006 11:13 pm         

Poll questioned, but shows support for gambling vote

Are you ready for some table games?

Unlike Monday Night Football, which enjoys almost unanimous support across America, the answer could hinge on who is paying for the poll and how opponents interpret it.

For the moment, the ball is in the gambling industry’s hands, courtesy of a new poll showing 61 percent favor letting voters in the four racetrack counties decide on casino gambling.

Thirty-two percent disagree on letting Jefferson, Hancock, Kanawha and Ohio counties vote on gambling at race and dog tracks.

That means 7 percent had nothing to say either way.

“I’m not surprised by the findings in the poll,” Senate Judiciary Chairman Jeffrey Kessler, D-Marshall, was quoted in a release issued Thursday by the West Virginia Racing Association.

“I think people understand that voters should make decisions about things that affect their local economies, and this is certainly one of those cases.”

A leading foe in the House of Delegates suggested the poll was skewed, and, even if it weren’t, Delegate Kelli Sobonya, R-Cabell, says she would resist any local referendum, based on the industry’s refusal to sponsor a statewide vote.

Sobonya says gambling leaders want it both ways — touting the value of table games to public projects in all 55 counties while limiting the vote to only four.

“If they truly believe what they are saying, what do they fear in putting it out to all voters in the state?” she asked.

Ted Arneault, owner of Mountaineer Track in Hancock County, warned a year ago West Virginia could forfeit $150 million of the $325 million it gets from gambling now if tracks lose to competing outlets in Pennsylvania.

All of West Virginia stands to lose, he had cautioned.

“So it’s not a local issue, it’s a statewide issue,” Sobonya said.

Two decades ago, she pointed out, Democratic leaders, among them future Supreme Court Justice Joseph Albright, felt casino gambling couldn’t be enacted without a statewide constitutional amendment, and Jim Humphreys, then a delegate, agreed, saying, “This is an attempt at an end-run on the citizens, and they’re entitled to vote on it.”

But Randy Coleman, a spokesman for the racing association, said the pollster, Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates of Alexandria, Va., didn’t pose the rhetorical question of a statewide amendment to the Constitution since it wasn’t viable.

“A constitutional amendment can’t be done,” Coleman said. “You can’t do a statewide referendum when it affects only four counties.”

Coleman said the association didn’t view it as a gambling question for the time being.

“If it passes the Legislature and gets into those four counties, it is then,” he said. “Right now, it’s a local option issue.”

Strapped with a 3.5 percent margin of error, the poll quizzed 800 residents in July and shows a 10-point swing since last winter, when a January poll showed 51 percent favored the local option.

“It is our duty as legislators to listen to what people are saying and I think they’re clearly telling us that we’ve got to turn this issue over to voters,” Kessler said.

The poll showed 64 percent of Democrats were in favor and 32 percent opposed, while 56 percent of Republicans supported the local referendum and 36 were opposed. Sixty-five percent of non-registered voters were in support and 33 percent were opposed.

In July’s polling, respondents weren’t supplied any previous information that could sway opinions in either direction, the association said.

“It was a cold question,” said John Cavacini, the association’s president. “We asked the folks taking the survey to just tell us how they feel. We wanted another honest look.”

Sobonya said poll results can be manipulated by those conducting it.

“It depends on how you pose the questions,” she said. “I could call 800 people and come out with completely different results. You can get whatever results you want from a poll. According to Democratic leaders, when Gov. (Arch) Moore was proposing it, all said it would require a constitutional amendment. That hasn’t changed.”

Sobonya questioned the economic value of gambling.

“We keep increasing gambling year after year, new forms are added from what began as scratch-off ticket lottery, so why are we still last in per capita income and Virginia is first in the best place to do business and we’re 49th?” she asked.

“They don’t have the gambling that we have.”

Table game referendums in the four counties has been endorsed for the 2007 session by the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce. The measure failed a year ago when a Senate-passed bill bogged down in the House with a vote.