Star Tribune Editorial: One’s enough/Try for a tribal racino

At first, it looked as though a fierce head-to-head casino duel was being joined Wednesday at a Capitol news conference. Enough political muscle-flexing accompanied the unveiling of the latest proposal for state-operated slot machines at Canterbury Park to suggest that among legislators, a racino is running ahead of the state/northern tribes joint venture favored by Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

But then sensible words were spoken by Randall Sampson, the privately owned Shakopee facility's president and general manager. "We see these proposals as compatible," he said. "Nothing in our bill requires exclusivity." Sampson said the Legislature was free to authorize a racino and any additional facility it chooses.

Then he hit on a better idea: The state/tribal venture could be located at or adjacent to Canterbury Park. Canterbury's owners are open to negotiating toward that end, he said. Such talks would aim at securing some portion of a co-located casino's proceeds for larger parimutuel racing purses. "Our goal from Day 1 has been horse racing, how to make that successful," Sampson said.

The arrangement he described ought to have considerable appeal, even to some of the Minnesotans who are skittish about gambling's proliferation.

Racino proponents are fond of arguing that putting state slot machines at a place where betting already occurs on horse races and card games is not "an expansion of gambling." But in an important way, it is. Since Indian tribal gaming was allowed by the federal government in 1988, Minnesota has allowed its tribes a de facto monopoly on casinos. The betting palaces were deemed acceptable -- reluctantly, by many who understand gambling's social consequences -- because of the good their proceeds could do for a historically abused and impoverished people.

The most defensible reason for the state to get into the casino act now is not to plug a hole in the state budget, or to enrich private interests, which Canterbury's racino proposal has great potential to do. It is to pull a larger share of Minnesota's Indian population into the middle class. Casinos have indeed made a small Indian minority wealthy. But the vast majority of Minnesota's native people, particularly the Ojibwe of the Red Lake, White Earth and Leech Lake bands, are too far removed from large markets for their casinos to flourish. They need state involvement if gambling's economic engine is to work for them.

Authorizing a Canterbury racino without tribal involvement would move casino gaming out of Indian hands for the first time in the modern era. It likely wouldn't be the last time. The prospect of multiple privately owned casinos springing up might not trouble Senate Minority Leader Dick Day, who claimed Wednesday that in this realm, "competition is a good thing." Many Minnesotans, faced with the prospect of a casino being built in their neighborhoods, would disagree.

One of the strengths of the Canterbury proposal is that its neighbors seem eager for a casino to move in. Shakopee-area legislators like the idea; so do city and county officials. Pawlenty is right to insist that no community should be forced to have a casino in its midst against its wishes.

As Canterbury envisions it, a racino would subsidize a first-class equine theme park, one that would be a boon to tourism and to the horse industry in the Upper Midwest. There's little doubt that Minnesota would benefit from such an attraction. If the state can get it without taking casino gaming out of Indian hands -- and by lifting the prospects of disadvantaged tribes at the same time -- all the better. That's the goal that state, tribal and Canterbury officials should pursue.