The calculations, according to Cothran, are basic algebra.  He maintains that gambling proponents rarely share them because their proposals seem more attractive when voters don’t know the details: $700 million = 0.15 times X, where X is the amount that must be wagered. $700 million is the amount bill supporters say they can raise and 0.15 (or 15%) is the portion of the amount wagered gained by the “house” under the bill. The solution, $700 million divided by 0.15, is $4.67 billion.

“Kentucky families cannot afford to bet $4.67 billion and lose $700 million annually in order to bail out a wealthy industry,” said Cothran.

Cothran also wondered what taking $700 million out of the state’s economy would do to the economy as a whole in a time of recession. “This bailout bill is being sold as a cure for Kentucky’s economy. I don’t know where its backers got their economics degrees, but where I got mine, taking this much money out of a bad economy is not considered a cure for anything.”

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From the January 7, 2009 Philadelphia City Paper: “Meet Your New Neighbor: How slot machines are secretly designed to seduce and destroy you, and how the government is in on it,” by Isaiah Thompson:

It’s true that most statistics suggest that problem gamblers make up somewhere between 1 percent and 4 percent of the population …. But ask what portion of the gambling population has a problem, and the picture changes drastically. Several prominent studies — ones not funded by the gambling industry — indicate that problem and pathological gambling make up as much as half of all casino revenue — and as much as 80 percent of that, on average, comes from slot machines.

The gambling moguls in northern Kentucky are already counting their part of The Millionaires’ Bailout, according to Pat Crowley at the Cincinnati Enquirer. Turfway, a horse track in northern Kentucky is rubbing its hands together on account of Greg Stumbo’s HB-158, which would bring mechanized slots to the Kentucky horse tracks.

Turfway Park would build a $150 million free-standing casino if legislation allowing video gambling in Kentucky passes the state General Assembly this year.

Now we’re just thinking out loud here, but where do poor, needy gambling moguls, who, if you listen to the advocates of HB-158, you would think were having to sell their Armani suits and Italian shoes for food, getting $150 million?

But at least The Millionaire’s Bailout is giving these people some hope. And that’s something.

Coverage of The Millionaire’s Bailout on Lexington’s most watched television station.

LEXINGTON–A state anti-casino group announced its plans today to oppose House Bill 158, which would place computerized slot machines at the state’s horse tracks. The proposed law, said, Martin Cothran, is both good news and bad news: “The bad news is, if it works, it would give money to wealthy people by taking it from not-so-wealthy people,” said Martin Cothran. “The good news is it won’t work.”

“This bill is an economic bailout for millionaires,” said Cothran. “But even so, with the gambling industry hit hard by the economic downturn, there is no way it can raise the amount of money its supporters claim it will–either for millionaires or state government.”

Cothran, the new spokesman for Say No Casino, said his group will highlight several things about the bill:

• That it is a bailout for millionaires because it uses a form of gambling that attracts low-end gamblers and provides subsidies for high-end horse farmers
• That it can’t produce the revenue it promises because of a down economy that has affected the gambling industry worse than many other industries
• This it is a retreat from the promise by gambling proponents to “Let the people decide,” since, unlike previous attempts to expand gambling, it will only be voted on by lawmakers

“The kind of computerized slot machines the bill would place at horse tracks in House Bill 158 are the worst kind of gambling mechanisms,” said Cothran, “not only because they are the most addictive, but because these machines draw their audience from among people lower on the economic ladder than those who would normally attend horse races. “Video lottery terminals will appeal to the same people as the lottery: those who can least afford it.”

The bill sponsor has said the money is to be used in part to bail out the horse industry. “Basically this would result in a transfer of wealth from those in lower income brackets to those in higher income brackets. We certainly support the horse industry, but we’re having trouble figuring out why people who drop millions of dollars at horse auctions without batting an eyelash need a bailout.”

The gambling industry itself has fallen on hard times and that many casinos are even having to fold. “The gambling industry has been hit harder than most businesses. To say that gambling is somehow going to yield up hundreds of millions of dollars in this economy is just not realistic.”

Cothran added that many Kentuckians will be disappointed when they realize that all of the talk during last year’s campaign for casinos about “letting the people decide” on the measure was for naught. “With the Millionaire’s Bailout, the people will be taking a back seat to the high priced lobbyists.”