A pro-gambling group called Texans for Economic Development is buying airtime on radio stations around the state; their ads highlight Louisiana, Oklahoma, and New Mexico where horse tracks and casinos feature video slot machines.
"Thank you so much for forcing your fellow Texans to spend their gaming dollars over here in Louisiana,” says one of their ads. “You've already sent us all of your horse industry and all of the sweet jobs that go with it."
"Has anybody ever told you guys you are one heck of a neighbor? Well, you are. You're funding our schools, our health care, our research into alternative energy,” continues the ad.
State Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, supports gambling legislation as a new way to bring money into the state. She and other legislators just wrapped up a grueling budget session raising no taxes and not using state reserves. Non-partisan state estimates indicate placing video slot machines like these at horse tracks and on tribal land would raise nearly $ 1 billion a year, including tax revenue, in Texas.
"We have a revenue shortfall, and I think we're really just looking at any place that we can find to bring more revenue to cover the basic services that Texans expect,” she said.
Many Texas church groups are actively working against those gambling proposals and are taking their message from the pulpit to the halls of power.
"There's not a will,” said consultant Rob Kohler. “Folks aren't turning to it as a revenue mechanism."
Kohler is working on behalf of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission. The people he represents oppose it on moral grounds.
"You're going to have folks go to Las Vegas. You're going to have folks go to Oklahoma. You're going to have folks go to Louisiana, but to do those things, you've got to have a few things, be it a credit card for gas, or an airline ticket, a car, a phone,” said Kohler.
He says keeping the machines out of state creates an important buffer making it harder for poorer Texans to gamble their paychecks away.
