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MA Rep is Not Giving Up (1 of 2)

A Bay State Democrat is tenaciously resubmitting his initiative to bring slot machines to Massachusetts’s four racetracks, despite having been already shot down twice in the attempt. In January, when the state Legislature again meets for the General Assembly, State Rep. David L Flynn will again roll the proverbial dice on fruit machines, trying to persuade his fellow lawmakers that income from the devices could really provide a budgetary boost. Massachusetts is home to three horseracing tracks and a dog track in Raynham, all of which Flynn would convert into what the gambling industry calls “racinos.”

Flynn believes that the controversial slot games could potentially bring in seven hundred million dollars annually from their very first year of operation, but insists that the machines would be a boon to the state economy if their yearly haul was even half that amount. The representative said that the state badly needs the revenue and jobs that would be generated by the installation and operation of the pokies at the locations specified.

Flynn is so determined to make his third time the charm in trying to push the bill forward that he’s willing to revise his strategy a bit for this go-around. This past January, Flynn composed an eighty-five page proposal that gave the Legislature too much opportunity to quibble over the myriad small details contained therein. He says that, for 2009, he’s thinking of filing something much simpler… he even joked that it could be condensed into a single sentence: “Twenty-five hundred slot machines to be approved by the Legislature for each of the four [race]tracks.”

Continue to part 2 here.

Back to October 2008 Archive.