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Lotto TouchPlay machines threaten delicate balance

Iowa Lottery President and CEO Edward Stanek is a brilliant man. Talk to him for a few minutes and you start nodding your head and saying, "yeah" and "right." His voice is like driving 55. There is nothing blurring by. He goes from A to B to C. However, when he tried to convince me last week that the Iowa Lottery's TouchPlay program wasn't really a series of glorified slot machines, he lost me. The TouchPlay machines, like Blazing 7s, are in convenience stores, grocery stores, clubs and bars, and the only thing un-slot-like about them is that they don't have an arm to pull. Oh, and the fact that they are, for all practical purposes, not regulated.

And therein lies the problem.

While a limited number of Iowa not-for-profits and businessmen have moved mountains, battled a hard-nosed system tirelessly and have had to adhere to strict policies in order to be involved in the gaming business, Stanek has essentially created the opportunity for others to circumvent it while reaping the benefits. See, to Stanek and the Iowa Lottery, the TouchPlay machines are merely pull-tab lottery tickets in a fancy wrapper. The results, like pull tabs, are pre-determined. You just don't get the gray stuff under your fingernails.

But set aside the technical jargon and concentrate on the fact that you are playing a machine with lights and banners and bars that scroll down after you put in money and push a button that reads "Play Now," and that, if you should win, a receipt is spit out so you can get some cold hard cash, and it's pretty tough to tell the difference between the TouchPlay machines and slots. In fact, one might wager that if a game of charades was being played and someone ran down: 1. Gambling 2. Flashing lights 3. Bars 4. Bells, no one would blurt out: "oh, oh. TouchPlay machines!" They'd say "slots." In fact, casinos everywhere have slot machines called Blazing 7s that look exactly like - you guessed it - an Iowa Lottery game called Blazing 7s, because, as lottery officials say, "We need to have equipment that is competitive."

It's bad for business and an end-run around the law.

See, gambling was first created in Iowa - and then recently expanded - to create three things: jobs, tourism and economic development. These TouchPlay machines do none of these. Proponents insist they give the bottom line a boost. But when casinos see a revenue drop that is in step with TouchPlay additions (about 100 per week with 4,500 in 2,500 locations in Iowa so far), it's more like robbing Peter to pay Paul. It's also undeniably foolish when $600 million is currently being spent on new casinos and existing casino upgrades, and state experts were paid top dollar to figure out just how much gaming it takes to walk the fine line between realistic and problematic.

I seriously doubt individuals like Des Moines businessman Gary Kirke would have fought tooth and nail and jumped through every hoop imaginable for the opportunity to build a casino in Iowa when all he really needed to do was get the keys to an old Laundromat, throw in a couple hundred of these machines, give the state its 30 or so percent and laugh all the way to the bank. And I seriously doubt that Kirke would have thought it was worth the trouble and the millions of dollars he'll spend on a casino when a guy with a gas station across the street from him can be up and running in a matter of days if he has the $10,000 to buy the machine or the means to rent one from a distributor.

This publication was critical of Kirke when he wanted to build a casino in Central Iowa. It was too much - especially when one factored in the good that is done with Prairie Meadows' dollars for Polk County and scores of its philanthropic organizations that would have been threatened by additional gambling. But Kirke was never anything but above-board in his pursuit. The Iowa Lottery, though, cannot say the same. Its machines walk like ducks and talk like ducks, but they aren't ducks, that entity says.

Well, they can paint it with any brush they choose, but 2,500 micro casinos is just too much and a genuine threat to the delicate balance this state has worked so hard to achieve regarding gambling. Add to it the social ills that having a slot machine on every corner might create for problem gamblers and children, and it is easy to see why Gov. Vilsack and Iowa legislators are wising up to these unregulated gambling parlors and the damage they could do.

True, the Iowa Lottery and Stanek have been godsends for the state when it comes to creating revenue; and it should be noted that Stanek and the Iowa Lottery were simply doing what state leaders wanted them to do when they instituted the TouchPlay program: fatten the state's bottom line. However, there is simply too much at stake for Vilsack and legislators on both sides of the aisle to let this go unchecked. Iowa jobs, Iowa tourism and Iowa economic development are at all at risk. Are any of those worth gambling on? CV

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